Letters
by Morning Lilies
Summary: In the final months of the war, Harry entrusted Ron with a bundle of parchments marked 'just in case'. More than seventeen years later, Teddy accidentally unroots a bit of the past. But once he starts reading, he can't stop.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hello. So I've been playing with this idea for a while now and I finally decided to test it on the public eye. I'd really appreciate feedback. Also, if you read 'The Discovery' this story is not part of that 'world' I suppose you'd call it, where Teddy and a bunch of the Weasley/Potter cousins read the HP books. Most of my stories are set in that 'world', but this one is not, only because if Teddy knew all this it would ruin those stories. It's just a sort of different way for him to find out about the past. **

**I hope you like it and I don't own a single thing. **

Teddy stretched out on the old camp bed Hermione had made up for him in a corner of the attic. His potions book lay open in front of him, a guise in case any of the munchkins came looking for him. He could hear the five of them running around down stairs, squealing and shouting as they played whatever game they'd cooked up for that afternoon. Teddy had spent yesterday cramming himself into tiny, dusty places and dashing wildly around the back garden after them, having been roped into joining their games of hide-and-seek and tag. Hoping to get at least one day of his last summer holidays _ever _to himself, he had therefore retreated to the attic to hide behind his homework.

Every summer since he'd started at Hogwarts, Teddy had spent at least three weeks at Harry and Ginny's. As it happened this year – the last year the tradition would be upheld ('Oh, Teddy, you're welcome to stay whenever you like! In fact, you're _required _to come and visit. This will hardly be the last time you stay with us') – Harry got called to somewhere in Scotland on Auror business, and Ginny took off to cover the tryout week for the Harpies. Which left Teddy, James, Lily, and Albus at Ron and Hermione's.

It wasn't that he minded getting shipped off. He loved staying with Ron and Hermione, but it meant that Hugo and Rose joined their partners in crime, and the five of them together were somehow twice as crazy as just James, Albus, and Lily, and twice as insistent that Teddy play with them. Normally he didn't mind lending himself to their imaginations, but there was only so much 'dragon hunter' a normal seventeen-year-old could take.

Bored with his homework and unwilling to venture downstairs lest he end up as part of the little kids' circus, Teddy rolled off the camp bed and crawled over to the little window set low in the sharply sloping ceiling. But his foot caught on the leg of a stool and a second later, with an almighty thudding and plume of dust, several old boxes and bags tumbled to the floor.

Eyes watering and nose streaming from the dust, Teddy somehow managed to flip himself around in the clutter without knocking anything over, and sit up so he could hastily put things back in order before Hermione came bursting in to make sure the roof wasn't collapsing or something.

He stuffed Rose's baby clothes back into their bag, piled a bunch of Hermione's old text books into a box, and was just heaving a great hamper stuffed with old Weasley sweaters back onto the stool when a thick packet of parchment that had gotten wedged behind a crate caught his eye. It seemed to have fallen out of an old and beat-up rucksack that had been overturned in the avalanche.

Balancing precariously on the edge of the stool, Teddy reached over to fish it out. It was a wad of envelopes bound together by an old shoelace. He looked it over with absent-minded curiosity as he groped for the rucksack it had come out of. There were two words scrawled onto a scrap of parchment tucked at the top of the stack. Teddy recognized Harry's cramped writing: _In case_.

Teddy stopped grabbing for the rucksack. He stared down at the words, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. It wasn't any of his business. He really should just cram the envelopes back into their bag and forget about them. It would be an invasion of both Ron and Hermione's and his godfather's privacy to pry.

But something about those words, _in case, _made him shiver. In case of what?

Knowing he really shouldn't but unable to resist, Teddy pulled the shoelace off and let the stack of envelopes fan out over his knees. There were at least a dozen of them, and on each one Harry had written a name. _Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley…. _

But the one that caught Teddy's eye was one labeled _Remus_. This must be a very old 'in case'.

Reasoning that as the intended recipient would never open this letter, it was rightfully Teddy's anyway, he pulled it out from the middle of the stack. He hesitated for only a second before ripping it open and pulling out the folded letter inside.

_October (I think), 1997_

Teddy blinked at the date. He _thought_ it was October? But then the year struck him. This had been in the last months of the war, just as things were reaching an all-time bad, according to the history books. Licking his lips, Teddy started on the rest of the letter, not tearing his eyes away from Harry's scrunched writing until he had reached the end.

_Dear Remus,_

_So, if you're reading this, chances are things didn't go so well for me. If Hermione knew I was writing this she would tell me to stop because it's morbid, but, well, to be honest there's a damn good chance I'll be needing it. Things aren't exactly going fantastic at the moment. _

_Look, I don't know if I ever got the chance to set this straight, but I don't want your last memory of me to be… well, you know, in the basement of Grimauld place. I'm sorry I called you a coward. I won't take back the things I said. I'm still right, you know, about Tonks and the baby. You ought to be with them, and if you're not, well, then I guess I'm still right about the coward thing, too. But I'm sorry I said it. And I kind of deserved to get slammed into a wall for it. _

_I think I can understand – sort of – why you left, though. I still don't think it's right, but I think I can understand. I've been thinking about the whole thing a lot lately, actually. You didn't want to pass your burdens onto your family, endanger them anymore. Believe it or not, I can relate. But it's too late for that, now. For both of us, I guess. The best you can do now is be there to share the struggle. I really hope you're there now. You're not a coward, Remus. I know you can't run from this. _

_There's a couple of things I want to say, you know, just in case I never got to tell you. _

_First, you really were the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher I ever had. I know there isn't a lot of competition among the Death Eaters, evil ministry hags, and narcissistic gits who accidentally wiped their own memories, but you were a brilliant teacher. And hey, maybe you should give it another try. Hopefully Voldemort's gone by now and the curse is broken. I'm not the only one that thought you were a great professor._

_Second, thanks for being around. I mean, you didn't exactly have to be, but you were when you could be. That, well, that means a lot to me. And even though it was more to get away, the fact that you wanted to help me with this, you know, what I'm doing… well, it means a lot to me, too. Believe me, this isn't something any sane person would volunteer for unless they really, really gave a damn._

_Third, you're going to make a great father. Your kid'll think the world of you, I know it. I hope I got to meet him/her, but if I didn't, make sure you tell them I tried really hard. _

_I don't know who all will make it out of this or how long it will take or what the world will be like when it's over, but I hope it's better. You deserve a happy ending. _

_All the best,_

_Harry_

Teddy stared down at the yellowed parchment before him, his vision strangely blurry. A whirl of emotions was ricocheting around in him. He wasn't sure which was twisting his gut harder, the fact that Harry was talking about a future his father would never see, or the fact that Harry was talking as if _he _wouldn't be there to see it. And what did he mean about his father not being with him and his mother? _What _had happened in the basement of Grimauld place? It had been a long time since something had dealt such a blow to the foundation of his world, but this had shaken it.

He was half-way to his feet, intending to stagger downstairs and confront Hermione about this when the rest of the letters cascaded off his lap to the floor. He stared down at them, picking out familiar names, guessing what they all were now. Maybe there were more explanations in there? Maybe Teddy just wanted to know more about the war, and the moment he told Hermione what he'd found, he doubted he would get to read another word. Maybe he was a little emotionally unbalanced after reading that letter meant for his father.

Whatever was motivating him, Teddy sat back down with a bump and grabbed the first envelope, the one addressed to Ron.

_December 28, 1997_

_Dear Ron, _

_I think you know what these are for. You know, just in case… something happens to me. Since I very nearly got me and Hermione killed only three days ago, and then yesterday if you hadn't come along I'd still be at the bottom of that frozen pool, you can see where I'm coming from. So if worse comes to worse for me, and you fair better, think you can make sure these get to the right people? I slipped these into your bag because I don't think Hermione likes me writing things like this. I don't reckon it puts you in a bright mood either, but I know when you find these, you'll keep them safe for me. _

_I'm glad your back, mate. And not just so I can stow my posthumous letters from the grave with you. I love Hermione (like my sister), but it was a hell of a lot more difficult just getting by when you were gone. I forgive you for that, just so we're clear. I mean, after you saved my neck and got rid of the locket, I thought it was pretty clear, but if I know you, a part of you will still be beating yourself up over it for a while. _

_I'm sorry I got you sucked into this. You've gone through hell for me, and there's no way I could possibly repay you. I don't know how this will all work out, or who will be left standing, but I'm going to give it my best to make sure it's you two. I reckon the best thing that ever happened to me was you sitting in my compartment that day on the train._

_Not many people would put up with me like you've done. Letting me crash in your room every summer. Sticking up for me when everybody thought I was mad and dangerous and out for attention, or when it meant having a big target painted on your forehead. Dealing with me when it must have looked like I was cracking up, seeing into You-Know-Who's head and all. Getting dragged into my saving-people-thing. Putting up with standing _next _to the famous guy. Even sharing your family with one more person. _

_And you never treated me like anything but a normal person. I never had to wonder if I could trust you or what you said to me, but more than that…. You were one of the first people to treat me like a normal person ever. I can't tell you how much I appreciated that. _

_I've asked more from you and Hermione than anyone ever has a right to ask, and I'm sorry and incredibly grateful at the same time. _

_Maybe you don't realize it all the time, Ron, but you're one hell of a guy. And just so you know, Hermione thinks so too, so you two should just snog it out already. Honestly, I don't know how much more of this I can stand. _

_So even if I'm not around to see it, you're going to have a great life. You deserve that much. If you see the end of this – and I'm going to make damn sure you do – you should make the most of it._

_If Hermione's like my sister, you're like my brother. I just wanted to make sure I got the chance to tell you that. Blimey, it's much less awkward writing this down. Maybe all emotional problems should be dealt with this way._

_So, thanks for everything, mate. Really._

_Harry_

Teddy felt almost like he was sitting upon the deck of a rolling ship. There was so much… intensity behind Harry's words, almost a desperation that was foreign to him. And the details were maddening.

Where had _Ron _been? Why were so many people not where they ought to be? Where Teddy had always known and believed them to have been? How close had Harry and Hermione – and Ron, too – come to death and how many times? It was one thing to know that the last year of the war was the bloodiest, but an entirely different thing to contemplate daily life in that climate.

This was a more in-detailed glimpse of the past than Teddy had ever been afforded before and while part of him yearned to know more, part of him was screaming that he didn't want to know this much.

The letters were like shattered pieces of glass, cross-sections of a story he did not understand. But he had to, had to keep fitting them together now that he had started.

But the next envelope sent a shiver jolting up his spine, almost preventing him from going any further.

_Will_. It was scrawled like any other name on the back of the envelope, but it rang out quite plainly the intent of this stack of letters, the actuality of their necessity.

Because he couldn't stop now, Teddy ripped it open and unfolded the parchment, fingers trembling slightly.

_This is the last will and testament of Harry James Potter. Or maybe it's not. I don't know much about legality and the likes, so this might not even be valid. I'm sure Hermione could tell me, but I don't think she'd let me finish this if she knew what it was, so I'll just have to hope that you all will find a way to respect my wishes regardless. Well, here it goes… I don't actually have that much to will. _

_First off, all the money in my vault should be split up. I want a lot of it to go to rebuilding and stuff for when the war is over, but at least half of it should be split up between Ron Weasley, his immediate family, Hermione Granger, Remus and Nymphadora Lupin, Neville Longbottom, and Luna Lovegood. And when I say all of Ron's immediate family, I mean Charlie, and even Percy, too. You can all decide how to split it up amongst yourselves, but Remus better take enough to spoil his kid, and Ron and Hermione aren't allowed any unless some of it goes to their wedding. _

_Number twelve Grimauld Place is left to Andromeda Tonks as it is rightfully her family's anyway, but all of Sirius's personal possessions are for Remus to decide what to do with. _

_That just leaves some personal thing. _

_The Moke-skin purse and everything in it should be entrusted to Ron and Hermione. I'm not even sure if you'll be able to get it open, but I trust you two with the things in there. They might look pretty useless, but I think they'll mean more to you. _

_The watch I got for my seventeenth birthday should be returned to Molly Weasley. I was honored to have received it at all. _

_The Marauders' Map should be returned to Fred and George Weasley to be coveted by a new generation of law-breakers. Thanks for letting me borrow it. _

_I leave my invisibility cloak to Ron and Hermione, too, since they deserve it after all the time we spent sneaking around under it together. _

_The photo album of my parents should go to Remus, since I think most of those pictures were his to start with. They were worth more than gold to me. _

_And finally, Kreacher the house-elf is to be set free if he so wishes, or else to serve at Hogwarts. _

_And I think that's everything. _

It ended without ceremony or flourish. Teddy stuffed the piece of parchment back into its envelope and flung it aside, breathing rather sharply. He knew Harry had a will now, knew that most adults did, but that had been something different. It had not had an air of 'just in case'.

Almost blindly, Teddy reached for the next letter. He had begun this, and now must finish it, was required to finish it.

_December 27, 1997_

_Dear Hermione_

_So here goes my second try. You ripped up the first one, remember that? Read it over my shoulder and nearly went through the roof. Don't worry, I know most of that was probably pent-up from the other he-who-must-not-be-named. It's kind of a good thing you ripped that up, though, you know, now that he's back. Anyway, you're asleep at the moment, so I think I'm safe this time. Just to be sure, though, I'm hiding under the kitchen table. _

_That's how important it is that I get the chance to say this. I know you think it's like me giving in or something, but it's not. With everything the way it is… I just want control over my last words. That's it. I don't want things going unsaid. _

_Like the fact that I owe you my life a hundred times over. Honestly, Ron and I would have gotten ourselves killed in first year. Or worse, expelled! You've stuck with me through everything, and all I did was stop a troll from bashing your head in. And then Ron had to stop it from smashing me like a fly. _

_Speaking of Ron, you should forgive him. Hopefully you already have, but if sixth year was any kind of indication about you two and grudges, he really is sorry. You can't possibly regret it more than he does. _

_I don't think I've ever told you this either, but you sort of turned into the sister I never had. I don't know, but I like to think that's what I turned into for you, too. Brother, I mean. It's lonely being the only child, isn't it? I was always insanely jealous of Ron and all his siblings. And even though the Weasleys took us in, we were always on the outside. We don't have red hair, do we? You made me feel less lonely, though, being stuck on the outside with me. I think it was all in our heads, though. I think if we stopped feeling like outsiders, we wouldn't be. _

_That's what I think I'm trying to get at. You're not alone. No matter what happens, you're not alone, okay? I'm not around anymore, and I don't know who all is, but you shouldn't ever feel alone. The ones we love never truly leave us. _

_You're brilliant, Hermione. And I'm not just talking about how smart you are. I owe you everything, you and Ron. Who else would be here with me now? Everything's going to be okay. You know how I know? Because every time I was convinced it wouldn't be, you were there to make me see otherwise. And you were always right. So let me tell you this time. Everything's going to be alright. You're going to have a good life. _

_All the best,_

_Harry_

Teddy set the letter aside and leaned his head back against the boxes behind him, closing his eyes. He could picture it. He could picture them at seventeen – his age – in the middle of this. Nothing else, not hearing old stories or reading history books or looking at old pictures, had drawn such a vivid image for him, though.

Letting out his breath, he grabbed the next letter. The name on it made his stomach plunge, but he was too far in to stop now.

_Sometime in winter, 1997-ish_

_Dear Ginny_

_Of all the letters I've written lately, this one's the hardest. I crumpled about six different tries up, actually. Lucky number seven, though, right?_

_I wish – I wish a lot of things that are pointless. I wish I'd noticed you sooner. I wish I could talk to you now. I wish I wasn't here. But I didn't, and I can't, and I have to be. _

_I'm sorry I didn't leave you anything specific in my will. If the Ministry got hold of it, I didn't want to single you out unnecessarily, plus there wasn't much of my stuff I figured you'd like to have. What I want to give you, I don't have yet. _

_And I'm sorry for leaving. I'm sorry for not telling you why. I'm sorry I can't tell you why here. But most of all, I'm sorry I didn't come back. If you're angry at me, I don't blame you. _

_I miss you. I never thought I'd have someone like you; someone…. It makes this so much harder. _

_But enough about me. You're still alive and that's what's important. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. Dumbledore said that, so you know it must be true. We always knew it would end like this, didn't we? We didn't expect to end up married or anything, right? _

_I knew. I shouldn't have started this at all because I knew it would end like this. It felt too good to be true, and that's because I knew it was. I'm sorry. Not for last spring. No matter how hard I try, I can't be sorry for last spring. But I'm sorry for this. For how it ended._

_But endings always lead to beginnings, right? You're going to have a great life, Ginny. You're going to get married and have children and live to see _them _grow old. Enjoy it. Enjoy every second of it for me. _

_I don't really know what else to say. I wish I could say everything, but there just isn't enough time. There's never enough time. _

_I loved you. I always will. Remember that. If you remember anything, remember that:_

_I love you._

_Harry_

The last lines were shaky and spaced as if they had taken a lot of consideration. Teddy wondered, with a pang, if this was the first time Harry had materialized those words. He stared at them for a long while.

Harry had never expected to live. It was not just the climate, not just the terror of war. He had _never _expected to survive this. How long in the making had these letters been? How long had he anticipated saying goodbye?

Every word laid down carried intensity that rippled up from the yellowing parchment like long-dormant energy. Even after nearly eighteen years he could feel it. And he could imagine Ginny reading this, imagine the look on her face as these words rolled over her and it twisted something hard inside of him, made it far, far too real.

With a sharp breath, Teddy slid Ginny's letter aside and reached for the next.

**A/N: What did you think? This isn't done, of course. I'm not sure how long it will be, but I'm thinking another two chapters of letters and then one of more reaction. It's hard to get Teddy's thoughts into this when he's moving so quickly from one letter to the next without interrupting the flow of the letter. It's almost like telling two stories at once. If you've got any thoughts on how I could/should deal with Teddy's thoughts, I'd love to hear them! Please let me know what you thought of this! **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I'm sorry this took so long to get up! Thank you guys SO much for all the feedback! I was floored by the reviews this got! You're all incredible, really! I've gotten some ideas for this story that I hadn't originally expected, so we'll see where it goes, but nothing more than five or six chapters is what I'm thinking. Well, I hope you enjoy this! **

Teddy squeezed his eyes shut for a second, almost dreading seeing who the next recipient would be. But when he looked down, he found a modicum of relief. He recognized the name, blearily matched it up with a face from his childhood, a sporadic visitor at the Potter household or the Burrow, but it was not someone he knew intimately, not someone whose own emotions he would be able to picture and feel as he read.

Maybe here he would find a less emotion-clogged window into the mysteries of the end of the war.

_Early January-ish, 1998_

_Dear Luna_

_This has to get to you. It will. I suppose it's pointless for me to write that here. If you're reading this, obviously it has found you, and if this never gets opened, then my hope doesn't do you any good anyway. But it makes me feel better to put it down in ink._

_I'm so sorry. I don't know what's happened to you or your father, but it was because of me. It's always because of me. But somehow, there you all still are, standing next to me. I hardly deserve friends like you. You were a great friend to me, one of the best I could have found actually. I only hope I managed to return some of that. Right now I feel like I haven't. _

_I've got a confession to make. I sort of snooped in your room. You know, the day we sort of accidentally got your house demolished. We're all really sorry about that. Really. We shouldn't have bothered your father, shouldn't have gotten him mixed up with us anymore. It's just, we needed to talk to him, needed some __answers__. Everywhere we turn, it's a dead end and – _

_But that must all be over now. I hope it is. I hope to Merlin I managed to accomplish something. _

_Anyway, back to my confession. Before things turned destructive, I kind of ended up in your room. And I saw your ceiling. I just wanted to tell you – tell you that I'm honored to be a part of that. I wish I'd known you earlier. I remember what it's like to be lonely, and you don't deserve that. _

_And I understand why your dad did what he did. Trying to turn us in, I mean. He thought he had to. He was trying to save you, and I can't hold that against him. If he's – If you can, please let him know that I don't hold it against him. _

_Maybe it's already too late. War changes everybody and everything. I know that, but I just hope – I hope it doesn't change you. I hope you don't let it, Luna. You're strong and brilliant and great exactly as you are. It would be nearly as bad as losing you if you let them take that away from you. Keep your roaring-lion hat and your durigible-plum earrings. Keep chasing those Crumplehorned Snorkacks. Keep believing in the things other people can't see. _

_I don't know what it's like now, but I'm pretty sure the world's always going to need someone to teach them believing is seeing. You'll be okay. You're probably the last person who needs me to tell you that, but you'll be okay. You wouldn't have insisted on following someone you barley knew on some insanely dangerous and stupid rescue mission for the most wanted man in the wizarding world if you weren't made of some pretty strong stuff. _

_Can I ask you for something, though? Do you think you could keep an eye on the others for me? I'm worried about them. They didn't hear them whispering behind the veil like you and I did. They don't know death like we do. And you've managed to get through to me when none of them could, not even Ron or Hermione or Ginny. Can you make sure they're all okay for me? _

_I owe you. I'll remember that when we see each other again. Make sure that's a long, long time from now though, okay? _

_Thanks for standing by me. You'll always have a friend in me. _

_Harry_

Teddy dropped the parchment. No, it hadn't been any easier not knowing Luna as he knew Ron and Hermione and Ginny. He knew Harry, could hear his voice in the words. The beginning more than anything made him feel sick. Harry had _wanted _this letter to reach Luna. That meant two things to him: something bad was happening to Luna and Harry assumed the reason she wouldn't read his letter was not because he would live, but because she would not either.

A picture was coming to him of Luna. She spent most of her time trotting the globe, but once in a while she would pop up, her dirty-blonde hair pinned up, adorned in strange jewelry and clothes. She was odd in a way that Teddy had always found fascinating, but he could see her at seventeen, younger than that, even. It sounded like she hadn't changed so much, like Harry had gotten his hope. And Teddy could only imagine how other students would react to a girl like that.

It added injustice and pity to the tumult of other emotions spinning in him. What had happened to her? Why had it been Harry's fault? He didn't even have room in his head to wonder about the rescuing-the-most-wanted-man-in-the-wizarding-world part at the moment.

Shaking his head, Teddy ripped open the next envelope.

_Winter, 1997 (probably)_

_Dear Neville_

_So I heard you tried to steal a sword. It's nice to know you and Ginny and Luna are keeping the sneaking-around-into-hidden-lairs thing up while we're occupied elsewhere. Shame it didn't work, but it's the thought that counts, right? _

_Pointing out the obvious here, but you've come a long way from our lesson on Boggarts third year, haven't you? I always knew you had it in you. And by the way, mate, thanks for undertaking that attempted robbery. I don't know how much Ginny's let on, but it was probably on my behalf, wasn't it? You've always been looking out for us all, even running the risk of McGonagall's fury and Hermione's spells. A true Gryffindor through and through to do that, mate. Thanks…. I know it's kind of late in coming and that one word doesn't really seem like enough for standing by me the way you and Luna and Ginny have, but it's all I've got. _

_Alright, I don't know what the world looks like now. I guess I never will. I hope to hell everything's over, hope that in the end I actually managed to do __something_, _but I can't leave anything up to chance. There's something I have to tell you. I don't know, maybe I should have told you a year ago, but…. I don't even know if it'll make any difference. Dumbledore didn't seem to think it would have, or he'd have told you himself, but, well, things might be different now. _

_I'm dead. _

-Teddy's breath caught involuntarily at the bluntness of those words, but he didn't – couldn't – stop reading –

_But if Voldemort's still around, he's __got to be stopped.__ He's got to be. Ron and Hermione know how, but – but they might need you. _

_You know that harebrained break-in we staged in the Department of Mysteries? The prophecy you and I smashed? Well… I heard what it said. It foretold the birth of the one who could defeat the Dark Lord. He was supposed to be born at the end of July to parents that had escaped Voldeomort three times. That's why he came after me and my parents in the first place. But it turns out I wasn't the only one who fit the qualifications. It could have been you, too. _

_I don't know exactly why Voldemort came after me first. Dumbledore thinks it was because I'm a half-blood like he is, but he knew it could have meant you. And maybe it still could be. There was another part that said Voldemort would mark the one who could destroy him 'as his equal', and Dumbledore told me that meant there was no doubt that it was me, but… there's always a chance he was wrong. He told me in that same conversation that he made mistakes. _

_Maybe this won't help anything at all. It said that 'either must fall at the hand of the other' which means that even though I'm dead and he's not, the prophecy could still have been fulfilled. But either way, I thought you ought to know. He might still come after you, just to be safe. _

_I wish I didn't have to tell you this; that everyone's lives might depend on you alone. It's not a position I'd wish on anyone. Funny how easily our lives could have been switched, isn't it? But I don't reckon you exactly got the lucky deal, either. _

_Look, I don't know if you're destined to destroy him or not, but… if there's anyone I can trust with this, it's you. You can do it, Neville. All prophecies aside, I know you can. Show this to Ron or Hermione, and they'll let you in on the secret. This HAS TO END. And you've got as good a shot as anyone else to do it. Don't let me die in vain, Neville. Please. _

_You all deserve a better life than this. It'll all be worth it if you get a better life. _

_You're one of the bravest people I know. Don't ever doubt it. _

_Harry_

Teddy blinked stinging eyes. He felt winded by the desperation that seeped into the last lines, the words galloping across the page as if they had all come in a flood and Harry hadn't been able to get them out fast enough.

Neville, Teddy's cool herbology teacher. Neville, who grew violets in a corner of every greenhouse just for his four-year-old daughter to come and pick. Calm, quiet, collected Neville had been Harry's successor of choice to head a war. And but a luck of the draw and he would have been in Harry's shoes. A position Teddy had not fully appreciated before and was not sure he could even now.

_Don't let me die in vain_. That had been Harry's dying wish. _Don't let me die in vain…._

He bit down hard on his lip and dropped this letter, too, moving on to the next. It was shorter than the others and Teddy read through it with a raging speed.

_Late 1997,_

_Dear Hagrid_

_I don't really know what to say to be honest. I meant to thank you, I think, but I can't quite find the words to do it. You met the Dursleys. You know what you took me away from. You brought me into a place I belonged and I just can't explain what that meant. _

_You've done a lot for me. And I want to make sure you know how much I appreciate it. You were the first person I met who really cared about me. Or at least the first person I can remember caring about me. _

_I just… I wouldn't give back a minute of the last six and a half years if it meant forgetting the whole thing. Not one minute. _

_You've lived through two wars. You know the score better than I do, probably. Some people live. Some people don't. I guess I'm part of the latter, and I'm okay with that. Or at least, I can accept that it has to be like that. I just didn't want to leave without saying thank you and without saying goodbye. _

_So… thank you, and I'll see you around. _

_Harry _

Teddy threw that letter aside, too, his throat beginning to ache. He registered the allusions to Harry's childhood in this letter, the ominous picture it painted, but he couldn't spare room for the anger and sick feelings that would occasion. Not now. Later, when he was lying in bed and the whirlpool of emotions churning inside him had faded, he would probably remember it. But now he had reached his emotional limit.

Or at least he thought he had until he saw the name on the next envelope. Biting down so hard on his lip a metallic-y taste was starting to fill his mouth, Teddy ripped open the next letter.

_1997, I think_

_Dear Tonks_

_I hope you get this. From what I understand, you're in a pretty dangerous situation right now. But you're a brilliant Auror, so I'm sure you can handle whatever comes your way. _

_I wanted to thank you for risking your neck for me. I mean, I know it wasn't just for me, but not everybody would voluntarily book themselves a ticket for that flight from Hell that got me out of Number Four. _

_But also I'm writing because I ran into your husband before we dropped off the face of the earth. Well, he let slip that you're going to have a baby, among other things. First of all, congratulations! I really hope I got to meet your kid because I'm sure he/she will be brilliant, too. _

_Look, I don't know what's going on exactly, but Remus seemed… a bit freaked-out when we saw him. I hope he came straight home to you and the baby. If he's with you now, don't be too hard on him. He wants the best for you, really. And the baby, I'm sure of it. But… if he's not with you now… well, first of all, I'm probably haunting him right now. But you and the baby will be fine. Like I said, you can handle just about anything that comes your way. You're going to raise a great kid with or without help. _

_Don't worry about Remus. Things will be okay. They always get back to okay eventually. Even if it's not the okay we maybe would have liked. _

_Well, I suppose you've got nursery rhymes to memorize or sleep to catch up on or something important like that. You're going to make a great mother. Just, make sure you slip your kid an extra chocolate frog from me once in a while. And make sure the world's a better place for them. _

_No matter what happens, it'll be okay. I'm going to give it my best to make sure of that. _

_Harry_

That was it. The last of Teddy's control melted away. What the hell had his father done? No, everything did _not _turn out 'okay' for his mother. And if she'd ever read this, they wouldn't have turned out 'okay' for Harry either.

He crumpled the letter in his fist as his vision blurred worse than ever. Answers. He needed answers. His father and Ron had both run out, something awful had happened to Luna and her father, Neville was nest in line to kill Voldemort and Harry was expecting to die. He could feel his head slipping farther and farther below the surface.

Teddy lurched to his feet, nearly bent double by the sloping ceiling. His eyes landed on the heap of ripped-open envelopes and the stack of untouched, yellowing ones, and he stooped to snatch them up haphazardly in his arms before staggering down the stairs to find somebody who could stop him floundering in this icy sea of unknown.

**A/N: So what did you think? I certainly never get tired of hearing from you! Anyway, I very much hope this was satisfactory. Since the **_**really **_**emotional ones (Ron, Hermione, Ginny) were tackled in the first chapter, I'm not sure if the rest will be quite as powerful, but if Harry started writing letters, I imagine he has something to say to all these people, and Teddy would read them all. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! :D**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I'm back! So sorry this took forever! And it doesn't even have any letters in it. But I think it was a necessary chapter and I hope you find it interesting. Unfortunately updates will be a bit spread out. Hopefully not much longer than this, but I've got Scholarships to worry about. The last due date is March 15, so after that I should have more time to write. Thank you guys SO much for sticking with me. This story has gotten incredible feedback, and I want you all to know how grateful I am for that!**

"Teddy!"

The chorus of excited voices broke out the moment Teddy appeared on the stairs, but he paid no attention.

"What've you been doing?" James asked at once, bounding over to him.

Teddy didn't even look at him. His elbow accidentally caught James in the ear as he lurched for the door into the kitchen, and James let out an indignant cry of pain. But he was barely keeping it together. He couldn't look back at James, at the rest watching from the sitting room, at the children Harry had been sure would never exist. His vision was blurring again.

The door swung open before Teddy reached it.

"What's going – Teddy? What's wrong?" Hermione's voice was instantly concerned as she took in his expression.

Teddy clutched the heap of letters against his chest and tried to explain, but all that came out was a strangled sort of grunt. Hermione put an arm around his shoulders and led him into the kitchen, now looking alarmed. James was right on her heals, the others clustering in the doorway, peering nervously at Teddy. They had hardly ever seen him notbeing cool and collected and light-hearted.

He dumped the letters onto the table, breathing hard and fast and trying to find a way to explain.

"I – I found them upstairs," he finally got out as Hermione leaned over to examine the yellowing parchment, frowning.

"Hey, this one's for Dudley!" James said suddenly, snatching a letter off the table. "How come you've got a letter to Dudley upstairs?"

Teddy roughly tugged the envelope out of James's hands. "Go outside or something," he said shortly. A whine of dread had begun in his head at the idea of _James, _who was only ten, discovering what this was.

James looked at him reproachfully. Teddy was never brusque with him. To show his defiance, James picked up a whole stack of letters and began to thumb through them.

"I mean it, James. Get out of here," Teddy said angrily, pulling those letters away from him, too. Something fluttered loose and he shot out a hand to grab it, realizing that it was the only way he would be able to explain what he had found. "This was on top."

He turned to Hermione and showed her the scrap of parchment with _in case_ scribbled on it. Teddy saw the moment Hermione understood. She went white. Whiter than he'd ever seen someone still standing. She took the parchment carefully from him, as though she expected it to crumble to ash in her fingers, and looked from those words in Harry's cramped writing to the names, the letters already unfolded.

"Children, back into the sitting room," she instructed faintly.

They just stared at her. James was chewing his lip.

"Mummy, what's wrong?" Rose asked in a high-pitched little voice.

Hermione took James firmly by the shoulders and steered him out of the kitchen. "Go on," was all she said to them, closing the door firmly. Then she waved her wand at the door, murmuring "_Muffliato._"

There was an audible groan from the other side as footsteps shuffled away.

Hermione sank into a chair and stared down at the pieces of parchment covered in Harry's scrawl as though forcing herself to look at some gruesome sight.

"Where did you find these?"

"In an old rucksack in the attic," Teddy answered in barely more than a whisper. "I know I shouldn't have, but I saw the one for my dad and I figured he was never going to read it anyway and – I just had to know. But – but I don't understand! Harry says he _left _my mum when she was pregnant with me! No one's ever said anything about that! He says that Ron left you two, that something awful happened to Luna Scamander! I –"

He broke off. Hermione had put her head in her hands. He thought she might be shaking. _He_ was trembling uncontrollably.

"Teddy," she finally said, looking up at him. "Sit down."

He gaped at her. Sit down? He wanted – needed – answers _now_, and all she said was 'sit down'?

"Please," she implored when he did not move. "I – it's a long story and not one I ever thought I'd be the one telling you. Harry would want to tell you himself, but I don't suppose you can wait for him to get back?"

Teddy dropped into a char beside her. She looked suddenly very tired and her eyes kept straying back to the pile of letters.

"That one's yours," he told her, pointing to a letter stuffed roughly back into its envelope. And then, unable to restrain himself, choked out, "What the bloody Hell really happened?"

Hermione didn't answer at once. She turned back to the mess of parchment and began sifting through it, never letting her eyes linger on a letter too long. At last, she found Harry's will and that seemed to confirm her assumptions. She let it flutter to the table before her and stared down at it for a moment or two. She blinked against the wetness gathering in her eyes, and Teddy saw the corner of her mouth jerk up when she read Harry's condition for her and Ron's portion of his money, but she did not read much beyond that. Instead she reached for the letter Teddy had pointed to.

It took her a long time to slip the parchment out and unfold it, taking care to smooth out the wrinkles. Teddy watched, scarcely breathing, as her eyes slide across the writing. Her hand flew up to her mouth, tears sparkled, ran down her cheeks. Her whole body shook. A choked laugh that sounded almost like a sob escaped her once or twice.

When she had finished, she tipped her head back, pressing the yellowed parchment to her chest. "I remember," she said so quietly it was nearly a whisper, and Teddy wasn't sure if she meant him to hear or if she just needed to hear the words allowed herself. "I remember how angry I was when I found him writing that first letter to me. Maybe it wasn't fair to get so upset, but I just couldn't stand the thought of another one of them leaving me…."

"He – he really didn't think he would live, did he?" Teddy asked, voice higher than usual.

"No," Hermione whispered, carefully setting the letter down. "I – I knew it at the time, too, but – I never let myself think it. Didn't let him think it if I could help it. It scared me. It all scared me so much."

"God," Teddy breathed. He leaned forward and buried his head in his arms.

He heard Hermione take a few steadying breaths beside him before she spoke again.

"Your dad was scared, too," she said, voice stronger now. He heard her chair legs scrape against the tiled floor, sensed her shift away from the table, probably focusing on him instead of the letters. "You have to understand what it was like for him just then. Most of the werewolves were sided with Voldemort. Bigotry was raging, both in the Ministry and the public. Your father was practically a fugitive and anyone associated with him was in danger, too. He couldn't bear the thought of having condemned your mother to that kind of existence, and when he found out about you –"

"Thought he'd beat it before he screwed up another life?" Teddy asked, surprised by the amount of bitterness in his muffled voice. "Leave Mum stuck with me and forget about his _mistake_?"

"Oh, Teddy," Hermione murmured. He felt her hand on his shoulder. "He loved you. And your mother. And somehow he thought he was protecting you –"

Teddy's head shot up. "_Protecting _us? It feels a lot more like he didn't give a damn!"

He knew that was harsh. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Teddy knew it wasn't true. He had seen the few pictures of his father and mother and himself, remembered that Harry hadn't believed for a second that Remus didn't care and told him as much in that letter, but that knowledge didn't soften the blow of rejection.

Hermione looked stung by his outburst. "Of _course _that isn't true," she told him, rubbing circles into his back as she had done when he was a little boy, upset over his frog dying or some other miniscule injustice. "He –" she sighed. "Teddy, your father was scared, just like the rest of us. I can't explain to you what was going through his head when he left, but he came back. And so did Ron. Luna was alright in the end, and Harry… Harry is still plenty alive and perfectly fine eighteen years later. That's what's important."

Teddy looked away from her earnest gaze, drew his legs up onto his chair, and wrapped his arms around his knees. "But what _happened_?" he asked tiredly. He was not done being angry, but he suddenly felt emotionally spent. Right now, all Teddy wanted was an explanation. That much he knew Hermione could give.

Hermione gave a strange, hollow sort of laugh, fingering a few locks of his turquoise hair that always stuck out around his ears. "Where do you want me to begin?"

Teddy leaned forward again to gather the opened letters into a pile in front of them, staring down at the information, fighting back the sick feeling of Harry's implied death.

"Luna," he said at last. "You said she's alright. What happened to her? Harry – he says it was his fault."

Hermione actually let out an exasperated breath, shaking her head. "He tries to take the blame for everything. I'll have to have a word with him about this…." She reached forward as though to take the letter to read, but changed her mind. "It was certainly not Harry's _fault_. Luna's father was printing things in his magazine that the Death Eaters didn't like. Supporting Harry and the Order, things like that. So, they took Luna."

"They took her?" Teddy gasped, horrified.

Hermione nodded solemnly. "It was the last year of the war, of course. She was in the same year as Ginny, sixth. They took her right off the Hogwarts express going home for the Christmas holidays. Kept her… kept her locked up for a few months…." She trailed off, lost in memory, Teddy was sure.

"What did they do to her?" he found himself whispering, even though he thought he didn't want to know.

"Starved her," Hermione murmured. She shook her head and Teddy got the feeling there was more to it than that, but he didn't ask. "We… found her after a few months, broke her out. She was alright. She _is _alright. But when we found out she had been taken, we had no idea. We hoped, told each other she would be fine, but…. I had nightmares about what might have happened to her…. Still do, sometimes."

This was the most unguarded anybody had ever been with Teddy about the war. People told him how brave his parents had been, how he could never understand how hard those times had been. They told him all kinds of lines because he was 'innocent', because they couldn't explain it to him, because they did not like to think about it themselves. They studied the statistics, the major points and the hows and whys in History of Magic, but books and lectures kept things black-and-white and at a distance. Hermione's voice, Harry's writing… it put it all in color.

There was a crack from the other side of the kitchen door. Both of them snapped their heads around. Ron's cheerful voice greeting the kids came from the sitting room.

"Teddy's crying," Lily's concerned trill rose above the others.

Reflexively, Teddy swiped at his cheeks, vaguely embarrassed that they had seen him like that.

"Why's that?" Ron asked.

Hermione got up and moved to the door.

"Dunno. He found some old letters upstairs and now they've locked us out of the kitchen," James said sulkily.

"Old letters?"

Hermione opened the door and stuck her head out.

"Ron? Would you come in here, please?" she asked, but there was no room for refusal.

Ron appeared in the half-open doorway, taking in Hermione's tearstained face with rising alarm.

"Hey, what's going on?"

"You didn't tell me he wrote them," she said quietly, pulling Ron into the room and shutting the door quickly behind him.

"What?" he asked, utterly perplexed.

She picked up a stack from the table and shoved it into his chest, and Teddy saw some kind of anger that he didn't understand but that Ron seemed to, in her face. His eyes had grown wide, and he looked down at the envelopes with dawning comprehension and something else – something akin to fear.

"Where did these come from?" he asked.

"Teddy found them rotting away in our attic," Hermione said furiously. She strode away from him to the other end of the kitchen before whirling again. "You had these all those months, _knew _what he was thinking of, and you didn't think to _tell _me? You didn't think it was important enough to _mention _what sort of mental state our best friend was in?"

"Well, could you blame him for thinking like that?" Ron demanded, throwing the letters back onto the table. "How many nights did you lie awake wondering how many more you had left? Thinking about what your last words to everybody would be?"

"I spent more nights imagining what my _next _words would be!" Hermione flung back shrilly. "You knew all along what Harry was thinking. You knew where he'd gone when we couldn't find him that night, didn't you? Before we even started looking! All those months you spent telling me things would be alright, and you had _this _sitting in your rucksack. Lying the whole time…."

"I didn't even find them until a few weeks before… before we got caught," Ron told her angrily, although he stumbled on the end of the sentence. "If he'd wanted you to know, he would have given them to you!"

They both seemed to have forgotten Teddy was there. He sat frozen in his chair, watching the argument with an open mouth. He had never seen Ron and Hermione fight like this. It was like some old anger had been awakened in them.

"Or maybe he was just expecting you to take off again and not be around the next time Voldemort caught up to us!" Hermione shouted. Ron flinched as though she had struck him, and she pounced, stepping forward with intensity blazing in her eyes. "I didn't believe he would go into the forest, even when he disappeared. Not in a million years did I think Harry would really do that to us. If I'd known about those letters, I wouldn't have taken my eyes off of him for a second! What if Dumbledore had been wrong? If the littlest thing had been off, your best friend would have died and it would have been your fault, because you were the only one that knew what he was going to do, and you didn't tell anyone!"

Ron opened his mouth furiously, but Teddy leapt to his feet, looking from one to the other. "What are you talking about?" he demanded. "What do you mean 'what he was going to do'? You make it sound like Harry tried to kill himself or something!"

A transformation seemed to take place at his outburst. Ron and Hermione turned to look at him and suddenly the anger receded and the people he knew were back. But instead of answering, of assuring him he had jumped to conclusions and they would explain the whole thing, they merely exchanged a look.

Teddy swayed. "He did, didn't he? Bloody hell." He collapsed back into his chair, staring up at them and waiting for someone to pull him out of this icy sea he seemed to have fallen into.

"Not exactly," Ron said after a second. "Not like – like suicide or anything mental like that."

He looked around at Hermione for help. Slowly, she crossed the kitchen again and sat down beside Teddy. Ron took the seat next to her.

"It was the battle of Hogwarts," Hermione began heavily. "You – you've heard plenty about that night, enough to know that it was like a living nightmare. Things always seem the darkest before the dawn…. We were losing. The Death Eaters outnumbered us…. So many people had been killed already. We – the three of us – we knew how to kill Voldemort; we were the only ones who knew. And…."

She trailed off, but Ron picked up the story instead.

"V-voldemort gave Harry a way out. He made his voice carry over the whole castle, the grounds, the village. He accused Harry of letting everyone die for him while he hid. Then he said the fighting would stop for an hour. So – so we could collect our dead and –"

Teddy realized with a cold shock that his parents were among the dead collected. Hermione reached out for his cold fingers as she picked up the story again.

"He told Harry that if he gave himself up in that hour, the fighting would stop. No more people would have to be killed. I suppose I ought to have known what he was going to try to do then… the look on his face… but…"

"So," Teddy said slowly. His voice was still that high-pitched whisper. "He tried to _sacrifice _himself. For all of you."

Harry would do that. Teddy knew, saw it every time he looked at his godfather, how much Harry loved people. He would do anything for them. Anything. More than once, he had explained that to Teddy. When he was hurt at work, when Teddy couldn't understand why he kept risking his neck. It did not take great imagination to imagine Harry casting his life aside for the people he loved. But the thought that he had already _tried _to die planted a hard seed of sick fear inside him.

He thought about Harry now, up in Scotland somewhere. Would he do it again? It seemed like he got very close every time he left for work.

"There was more to it than that," Ron was saying. "I mean, I don't think he was stupid enough to think that we would really stop fighting if he died. But yeah, he tried to sacrifice himself for us."

"And why didn't you try to stop him?" Teddy asked shrilly.

Ron and Hermione exchanged another look, and Teddy thought he might have seen shame pass there.

"We lost track of him," Hermione admitted. "We came back to the castle – the Great Hall where… everyone else was."

Ron buried his face in his hands, the memories clearly catching up to him. Hermione gripped his arm tightly as she kept going.

"I thought he was with us, thought he came in with us, but – All of the casualties were in there. So many of them… so many we knew, and I guess he couldn't stand to look at them all. It took me longer than it should have to realize he wasn't there. There were three times that night when it felt like the world must have shuddered to a stop and bucked me off, spinning into space. That was one of them."

She fell silent, gazing off into space. Teddy was sure her thoughts were lost in time.

"But it didn't work," he said after a moment, clinging on to the solid fact that made everything better. "Someone stopped him, or something happened. He only _tried _to give himself up."

Ron nodded into his hands.

"So what kept him alive?" Teddy asked.

Ron finally sat up again, and he and Hermione looked at each other. Hermione bit her lip.

"That's… something you're going to have to ask Harry himself. I'm not sure that even we understand what happened in the forest that night."

Teddy was sure they knew, but whatever it was, it wasn't something they were going to tell him. He could accept that for now. There were other things he wanted to know.

But Ron had spotted the letter addressed to him, was already pulling it towards him.

"I've been wondering what this said for ages," he mumbled. "Guess I might as well read it now. Can't have Teddy knowing more about what Harry thinks of me than I do."

He gave a very weak chuckle as he unfolded the parchment. Hermione sifted absently through the other letters, looking only at the names and vaguely at the dates of the ones that were open, but Teddy watched Ron as he read silently through the letter. Ron didn't cry like Hermione. Once or twice he laughed, but it was not the usual loud, rolling way he laughed. It was almost like he didn't know what else to do but laugh or cry and didn't want to cry. Finally he pushed the letter away and passed a hand over his face.

"Nothing I didn't already know, but…" he mumbled, shaking his head.

"It takes you back, doesn't it?" Hermione asked in a hushed voice, and Ron nodded.

"Right back to that damn tent," he leaned forward, chuckling darkly again. "I dunno how he even managed to write. My fingers were practically frozen off by January. And I was gone a while before that…."

"Where were you?" Teddy asked sharply. Maybe it wasn't his place to be angry since he hadn't even been born, but he couldn't help the stab of betrayal he felt for Harry and Hermione. Ron was always there. It was just a fact of life. There must be some simple explanation, some mistake.

But the eyes Ron turned on him were guilty, and he looked at the tabletop rather than meet Teddy's gaze when he mumbled, "With Bill and Fleur."

"Why?"

Ron didn't seem to have an answer for that. He twisted the sleeve of his robes over his knuckles and kept his eyes down as though Teddy were the adult catching him in wrong-doing. Hermione laid a hand on his shoulder and answered instead.

"You just have to understand how dark everything seemed back then, Teddy," She said quietly. "People do things they aren't proud of when they get desperate. The three of us, we had to drop off the face of the earth, almost literally. Harry was obviously being hunted down by every Death Eater, every person they had imperiused, and every Ministry official and Snatcher out there.

"You know what Snatchers are, don't you?" she added, and when Teddy nodded, hurried on. "By then they were hunting down Muggle-borns too, so I had to be out of sight. And we had a mission. There were things we had to do, things Dumbledore had told Harry had to be done in order for Voldemort to be killed. We couldn't stay tucked away at the Burrow, we couldn't go back to school – Harry and I wouldn't have been able to go back regardless. The Death Eaters had taken over there. All we could do was pitch a tent in a different part of the country every night.

"It was September when we started camping out, and it only got colder after that. Half the time we didn't have any food. We couldn't contact anyone, didn't know if the rest of our friends and family were safe. They might all have been killed and we wouldn't be any the wiser. And on top of that, we had no idea what we were doing."

She laughed again, shaking her head. Teddy could almost see her sliding back through the decades to that tent, back to the war. She gripped his fingers even tighter.

"Dumbledore told Harry what had to be done to kill Voldeomrt, set him the task of doing it, but he hadn't told him _how _or where to _go_. Didn't give us any tools to do it. We were blundering around in the wilderness, freezing and starving and cut off from everybody with the lives of the whole wizarding world on us, and we had no idea what to do."

She paused, looking at Ron. It was a bleak picture, to be sure, but Harry and Hermione had toughed it out. Teddy didn't think it was any excuse for Ron to bail. Not when things were so dangerous as they were.

"And…" Hermione said hesitantly. "It didn't help that we were carrying something full of dark magic. We had to take turns keeping it safe, and it… preyed upon us in a way. It played on our fears and our weaknesses, made us think things… things we might have thought anyway, but it made them _worse._ Ron – he had the most to lose, the most to worry about –"

"The most weaknesses," Run muttered, speaking for the first time in Hermione's explanation.

"No," Hermione tried to protest, looking at him. But he merely nodded his head and said with conviction, "yes."

Then he turned to Teddy, looked right into his eyes, his face blazing with some sort of intensity. "Harry and I got into a fight. I said some awful things, he was ready to curse me into a jelly. We might have had it out right there if Hermione hadn't put up a shield charm. So then I walked out. We'd just heard some stuff about my family and it was my night to babysit that damn hor- er thing we were carrying around, and those aren't excuses, but that's why I left. Hermione tried to stop me, tried to come after me, but I was just… too far gone that night."

He ran his fingers along the grooves in the table, a brooding look on his face now, and took a moment to continue.

"And that's the funny thing about hiding out. You really can't find anyone. I knew almost the moment I left what a great moron I was being. I swear, I would have come straight back, but I got caught by a group of snatchers. By the time I managed to get away from those idiots, it was too late. Harry and Hermione had moved on. They could have been anywhere in the country, and even if I happened to wonder across them, I wouldn't even know it because the enchantments we used to hide made us pretty much invisible and silent to the rest of the world. It was really like we'd disappeared. No matter how much I wanted to get back, I couldn't have."

"But you did," Teddy reminded him. "Harry says you came back. How did you do that if it was impossible to find them?"

Ron sighed. "Yeah, I got lucky. Dumbledore figured I'd ditch them, so he left me something in his will that helped me find them. Course he didn't _tell _me that's what it did. It was just lucky I kept it on me all the time and figured out what to do with it."

He reached into his pocket and withdrew the little silver gadget he had carried with him for as long as Teddy had known him. It was a Deluminator, Teddy knew, that Dumbledore himself had made and passed on to Ron. He flicked it open and clicked it more out of reflex than anything, it seemed. The lamp above their heads went out.

Ron looked back over at Teddy earnestly. "It was the biggest mistake of my life, Ted. I've never regretted anything more. Can you believe that?"

Teddy nodded. "I just – I always thought – I dunno. I just had to know why."

"I thought I knew what went on back then pretty well, but… I had no idea. Still don't. My dad was gone and you left… Harry's talking like he's dead…." He laughed but it was in the humorless way Ron and Hermione had been laughing earlier. Laughing instead of crying. "I wasn't expecting to stumble across all of that in your attic."

"I should've given them back to Harry after the war," Ron said, looking over the other letters. "Don't even know why I kept that old rucksack. Not a lot of good memories attached to it. Maybe he'll finally burn all these and we can forget–"

But at that moment a flash of bright light shot into the room. Ron turned, snapping into Auror-mode as though he'd hit a switch. A bright red orb bobbed urgently up and down over the stove, and Teddy recognized it as one of the systems the Auror office used to communicate.

Ron's chair clattered to the floor as he leapt up, and both Teddy and Hermione's eyes snapped onto him. He'd gone almost gray.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked, eyes wide.

"That means I'm temporary Head of the office," he croaked. "Something must have went wrong in Scotland."

**A/N: Ooo, kind of cliffy, isn't it? Sorry! I really will try to update as soon as I can! I'm thinking two/three more chapters to go. I'm not sure if Teddy will read all the letters or how I'll deal with them now, but rest assured YOU will know what they all say by the end of this story. **

**Please review! I really love to know what you think and what your suggestions are! **


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I didn't abandon it! I promise! Sorry isn't going to cover the three month wait, is it? Heh. SO sorry about that. But it didn't stop the reviews from pouring in. I don't think I've ever gotten such a response from a story! You guys rock and this sudden and unexpected update goes out to all of you! Hope you enjoy!**

Teddy didn't have to wonder how hospitals ended up so full of sick people. The smell of antiseptic was more than enough to do it.

He sat in the hard, uncomfortable chair in the St. Mungo's waiting room, head in his hands. Hermione was arguing a few feet away. At first it had been with the Welcome Witch. Now it was with a couple of Healers who had been called down by the now-less-than-welcoming witch behind the front desk. Teddy could hear it was getting them nowhere, though. The hospital refused to release any information on patients – especially high-profile, risk patients – in the emergency ward. They were stuck down in the waiting room until Ginny got there from Hollyhead.

What was taking her so long, anyway?

Ron had rushed off to the ministry to attempt to deal with whatever had happened in Scotland. Hermione had considered leaving Teddy with the kids for all of two seconds before she caught the expression on his face and sent a Patronus to Neville instead. Teddy had hastily stuffed the pile of letters, opened and unopened, into a bag he'd snatched off the counter lest James or any of the others get into them. And now here he sat, trying not to think about the fact that he'd just been reading what Harry had once intended to be his last words to all the people he loved.

And all too aware of the bag occupying the chair next to him, filled with the rest of those letters that pieced together a past Teddy had thought he could imagine until today. Clenching his teeth, Teddy kneaded his forehead with his knuckles, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw stars. Then, with a sudden, jerky move that startled the bespectacled man flipping through a magazine opposite him with bubblegum bubbles sprouting out of his ears, Teddy snatched the bag back into his lap and pulled out a wad of envelopes.

He sorted through them until he held only the unopened ones, and fanned them over his knees, staring down at the names. He really had no right to open any more. But then again, he'd had no right to open any of the others, save for the two addressed to his parents.

Hermione had been forced into a chair across the room and was now employing her legal experience against the Healers. They were going nowhere fast and there was nothing else for Teddy to do to distract himself from the churning anxiety in his stomach.

After careful consideration of each name, Teddy pulled out the letter that seemed least likely to reach its recipient anyway. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, giving himself one more opportunity to stop before ripping open the envelope, his eyes following the print with a hunger like that of a starving man wolfing down berries he knows will make him sick.

_Approximately November, 1997_

_Dear Dudley, _

_Looks like I never did get to 'see ya' after all. I think we both kind of knew it wouldn't happen for one reason or another. But here I am bothering to write this letter to you. Would you have guessed you'd make the list of people I wanted to say goodbye to? Me neither. _

_I mean, let's face it. We hated each other's guts until this summer, as near as I can figure. But I guess the whole soul-saving business finally warmed you up to me, huh? And my existence being acknowledged as not a complete waste of space inside that house was pretty heartwarming, I can tell you. _

_Alright, enough sarcasm. I'll get straight to the point because I know you've never read this much in your life before. Sorry. I suppose that wasn't really necessary. Force of habit, though, you know? It was pounded into me. Literally. _

_Do you remember that? How you and your mates used to beat me up on a regular basis? I thought I stopped caring about that a long time ago, but I guess a little bit of me (probably my nose seeing as you bashed it in about once a month) is still a bit upset. Your dad would have hated me on principle, even if I wasn't messing up his 'perfectly normal life', and even your mum I can understand. She was jealous and petty and I was just a reminder. But I never really got why _you _hated me so much. _

_What did I ever do to you? You had everything you could have possibly wanted, even my face to constantly rub it into. I never ratted you out for cheating in school, or stealing six-year-olds' lunch money, or even splitting my jaw that one time with a cricket bat. You won every fight we were ever in. And until your eleventh birthday, I never even used magic on you. And to be fair, that wasn't __on_ _you anyway. The snake didn't even touch you. _

_So where did you get off making my life hell for ten solid years?_

_But I'm not writing this just so I can vent. Things started changing there at the end, didn't they? And like I said, most of me let go of all that shite years ago. Doesn't mean it's okay, but I was sick of dragging it around. Just know I didn't go to my grave still hating you for our childhood. _

_And I really am kind of sorry if I never got to see you again. You were as much a victim of your parents' upbringing as I was, really. The farther away from them you can get, the better. I guess I'm not saying disown them, but Dudley, there're a whole lot of people in this world who are different from your parents, and if you gave them a fair shot, you might actually find you like them. _

_You've got a shot at being a decent person. Your parents… I don't really think they'll ever change. Even after seventeen years, your mum couldn't quite bring herself to even try to make amends. But you could, and that says a lot._

_So even though I never did come round again, it wasn't entirely because I didn't want to. Do me a favor, okay, Big D? Try to branch out a little. Talk to people you wouldn't have, don't beat up some kid you would have. Maybe you could even hold a civil conversation with some of my friends. Just don't write people off because your parents don't like them. Everyone deserves a fair shot. _

_After everything that happened, I gave you one, didn't I? I wrote this letter, after all. _

_And for the record, I guess you were one of the people I was fighting for after all. I just thought you might like to know. _

_Anyway…. See you around, Big D_

_Harry_

You don't learn from your mistakes, do you Lupin? Teddy thought, stuffing the letter back into its envelope. With every letter he opened, he expected to get more answers, but he always ended up with more questions, a different side to an already-confusing story.

Dudley used to _beat Harry up_? But they sent each other Christmas cards and dragged their families to each other's houses whenever they were within fifty miles of the place. Teddy didn't think Dudley was the most exciting bloke around, but he'd never dreamed he and Harry had such a history. He knew Harry didn't get on much with his aunt and uncle, but hatred? He'd never picked up on that vibe. What exactly had Harry's childhood been like?

There was just so much he didn't know. And he hadn't even known he didn't know it.

Teddy looked over to where Hermione was now pacing. Evidently she had been unsuccessful in lawyering her way into the emergency ward. He wondered if she knew about this, about what Harry's family was like. She must. She and Ron knew nearly everything there was to know about harry and vise versa. Even more than Ginny sometimes. But he didn't dare to ask her now.

"Hermione!"

Teddy and Hermione both snapped their heads around at the cry. A door had burst open at the other end of the long room, and Ginny was hurrying toward them, red hair falling out of its bun and ink splattered across her face like an extra layer of freckles.

"Haven't they let you in yet?" she asked breathlessly.

"No!" Hermione burst out furiously. "They wouldn't tell us anything until you got here!"

Ginny frowned. She put a calming hand on Hermione's shoulder and grabbed a passing Healer. A few quick words and the man was leading them through the double doors that had for so long been barred to them. Teddy jumped up and rushed to follow.

"Teddy?" Ginny said in surprise, apparently having hurried past him without noticing. "What are you doing here? Who's with the kids?"

"Neville," Hermione explained shortly, two strides ahead of them.

Ginny looked between Hermione's and Teddy's faces, registering the urgent fear on both of them, the evidence of tears. "Is there something I don't know?" she asked, alarm suddenly spiking into her voice.

Neither one answered.

The emergency ward at St. Mungo's was a circus. It always was. Healers rushed in and out of curtained rooms, passing clipboards and yelling out codes that made no sense to anybody else. Teddy was nearly run over twice. But eventually they made it to the end of the hall where their hijacked Healer guide pulled back a blue curtain and ushered them in.

It was a long room filled with several beds and buzzing with multiple teams of even more Healers. Teddy's eyes jumped from bed to bed, his stomach lurching as he wondered what he was about to see. Then Hermione gave a muffled scream.

Teddy whirled around. She was running down the aisle, heedless of the commotion surrounding them. Abruptly she darted between two beds and flung her arms around someone who'd been standing over another patient. With an overpowering wave of relief, Teddy recognized Harry's shock of untidy black hair.

"Good to see you, too, Hermione," he said bemusedly, straightening his glasses as she released him. One arm was in a sling, but aside from that, he seemed perfectly fine.

Teddy took a steadying breath as Ginny stepped forward to kiss her husband's cheek and give him a much gentler hug. Somehow, the relief left him as winded as if Harry were the one in the hospital bed.

"Are you alright?" Ginny was asking Harry anxiously.

"'Course I am," he assured her, waving a hand. "Barretts here is in a bit more of a state, though," he added, looking down at the man in the bed beside him who Teddy now recognized as one of the Hit Wizards Harry sometimes worked with. "Caught a nasty curse . But why? What'd they tell you?"

"Hermione just sent me a Patronus saying Ron was temporary head of the office and to meet her here," Ginny said.

They both turned to look at Hermione, who still looked rather shaken up.

"What's up?" Harry asked her in concern. Then he seemed to notice Teddy staring at him with a similar expression. "Ted! What're you doing here?"

_Currently?_ Trying not to act like a five-year-old and start bawling or tackle Harry in a bear-hug, Teddy thought, blinking hard as Harry's letters swam before his eyes.

"Harry Potter, I ought to put you in one of these beds myself," Hermione burst out, too quiet for anyone else to hear in the bustling room. "We thought – we thought –"

Harry and Ginny both turned startled eyes on her.

"What'd I do now?" Harry asked, looking increasingly confused.

"I told you not to, but you did it anyway!" Hermione exclaimed, blinking away fresh tears. "And what's more, you told _Ron _and _not _me!" She looked like she was restraining herself from smacking him with great difficulty.

"What on Earth –?"

A Healer squeezed between them, trying to get at Barretts. Ginny seized Harry by his good elbow and Hermione by the shoulder and steered their little huddle down the narrow alley of beds until they found an empty corner of the hospital

"_I owe you my life"… "Remember that I love you"… "Don't let me die in vain"… "It wasn't like suicide or anything mental but…"_

The phrases filled Teddy's whole head, materializing randomly and expanding until he felt they must be bursting out of him. A hand was on his shoulder, and Harry was looking worriedly into his face.

"What's the _matter, _Teddy?"

Teddy opened his mouth without the slightest idea of how to form an explanation, but it didn't matter. Hermione seized the bag of letters he was twisting in his fingers before Teddy could make so much as a noise and thrust them into Harry's chest.

"What's the matter is he found these in Ron's old rucksack," she said, and even though she was acting furious with Harry, Teddy knew she wasn't really angry with him. She just found it easier to be angry than everything else.

Giving her a curious look, Harry opened the bag and peered inside. The color drained out of his face so quickly that Ginny summoned over a chair and forced him into it, alarm returning to her face.

"What's going on?"

But Harry didn't answer. He clamped the bag shut with a fist and looked up at Teddy with horrified eyes.

"I s'pose you read these, huh?"

Teddy nodded mutely, swallowing hard.

Harry turned to Hermione. He opened his mouth, probably to ask if she had, too, but gathered as much from the look on her face.

"Harry," Ginny said sharply. "_What_ is it they've read?"

"Well," Harry began hoarsely, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

"I think you need to see it," Hermione said, crossing her arms. The anger was beginning to fade now. She bent down and sifted through the letters until she found Ginny's.

Harry didn't stop her as she drew it out and pressed it into Ginny's hand.

Ginny furrowed her eyebrows as she slowly withdrew the crinkled parchment. Teddy watched again as confusion morphed into understanding. Ginny clapped a hand to her mouth, a whole range of emotions swimming across her face. She had barely read the first few lines, but she dropped the letter and turned a shocked face to Harry.

"You wrote a goodbye?" she whispered.

Without looking at her, Harry nodded.

Ginny collapsed into a chair beside him and stared vacantly at the letter on the ground. "My God. What the hell for?"

"What do you think?"

Ginny shook her head. Teddy felt like he was once again drowning in unanswered questions, but he couldn't find a voice to ask them. Not here. Not now.

At that moment a Healer appeared before them. "Mr. Potter, I need to check your bandages," she said briskly, pulling Harry to his feet and directing him over to an examination table. He had no choice but to go, but tried to offer an apologetic look over his shoulder at all three of them.

Ginny slid to the floor and opened the bag wide, leafing through the rest of its contents. "The prat," she said shakily, lifting out a letter addressed to Percy and another addressed to Charlie. "He didn't just get drunk and depressed one night, he _planned _this."

She closed her eyes for a moment, then, as if following orders, suddenly dumped all the letters back into their bag and stood up, slipping the plastic handles onto her wrist.

"Charlie's visiting from Romania," she said. "Mum's making a big dinner for everyone tonight. If he went to all the trouble of writing us letters, I think it's about time we all received them."

**A/N: What did you think? Only one letter this chapter, but the next one ought to be LOADED with them. I'm thinking there'll be two more chapters, but don't hold me to that. Obviously there are quite a lot of issues Teddy still needs to have worked out. We'll see how many more of these he reads…. Again, thank you all so much and keep the feedback coming! You rock!**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Hey! Remember me?... no? Yeah, totally understandable. God it's been ages. I kept promising various ones of you that I was on the verge of updating… and then I got busy. You see, aside from writing myself into a bit of a corner, I also graduated, went to France, and started college, making me fairly busy. But I have returned with the remaining letters because you all have been just so wonderfully encouraging and continued to pour in the reviews even though it's been seven months since my last update. Thank you so much! You have no idea how much that means to me. I had no idea this story would get such feedback! **

**This chapter is dedicated to those of you – especially the anonymous ones who don't have an account to keep track of stories for them – who have so dedicatedly continued to check this story and no doubt endured much disappointment because of my lack of posting. You guys are fantastic! I hope this was worth the wait! **

It felt rather like a dream to Teddy, standing in the warm, dusky light in the Burrow's back garden where he had just apparated beside Ginny. Through the glowing kitchen windows he could see the rest of the family cramming themselves into the small kitchen. From the way Molly kept looking anxiously out the window and the serious look he glimpsed on Arthur's face as he talked to Bill, Charley, and George at the table, news of what had happened in Scotland had spread.

It had taken them longer to get out of St. Mungo's than Teddy thought was probably necessary. The healers wanted to fuss over Harry's arm a bit more, see how he was reacting to potions he'd had countless times before, and insisted that he not apparate for at least an hour, much to his severe annoyance. But the healers in the emergency ward were used to Harry's muttered cussing and complaints and stood firm.

A part of Teddy thought this was probably a very good thing, really, because it had given Harry the opportunity to pull Ginny aside and talk to her and wipe a bit of that shell-shocked look off her face. He'd even managed to make Hermione smile (after disappearing into an empty private room so she could vent at him a bit). He'd tried to talk to Teddy, too, but Teddy hadn't said anything back because there were too many people around who shouldn't overhear the things he wanted to say.

But at last they'd escaped the hospital. Harry had gone home to change, Hermione to get Neville and the kids, and Ginny with Teddy to assure everyone at the Burrow that things were fine. Although they weren't, not for Teddy anyway.

"Are you really going to give those to everybody?" he asked quietly as they approached the back door, nodding to the plastic bag of letters still dangling off Ginny's wrist.

She looked down at it as if surprised to find she still had it. "No, I don't suppose I am," she sighed. "As much as I'd like to so he can see how appalled they all are with the whole thing, it's not my place. And besides, it would just drag up bad memories and none of us need that."

"So what's going to happen to them?" he asked in spite of himself.

Ginny shrugged. They had reached the steps. Molly threw the door open and rushed out to meet them.

"What's happened?"

"Everything's fine, Mum," Ginny soothed, putting her arm around her mother's shoulders.

Teddy followed the two of them into the crowded kitchen, but as Ginny began filling everyone in, he slipped through the attentive listeners, and ran up the stairs to the first deserted bedroom he could find. He spotted Victoire in the sitting room as he hurried past, and she tried to catch his eye, but he didn't slow down.

"Teddy?"

The knock came almost as soon as Teddy had shut the door to Ginny's old room and thrown himself down on the bottom bunk of one of the beds crammed into the small space. He didn't say anything, but she came in anyway, biting her lip and looking concerned. Victoire sat down on the edge of the mattress by his knees, and he rolled over to make room for her.

"Dad said Harry was in St. Mungo's again…" she began tentatively.

"He's fine," Teddy assured her, staring up at the slatted underside of the upper bunk. He remembered long summer nights in these bunk beds talking in the dark to Victoire and Molly and Dominique about the secrets they all knew the adults kept in their quiet, late-night toasts.

"So what's the matter?" Victoire pressed, furrowing her brow as she looked down at him.

"Do you think your parents expected to make it out of the war?" Teddy asked abruptly.

Victoire opened her mouth in surprise. "Oh, Teddy –"

"I'm not talking about Mum and Dad," he interrupted hastily, unable to take the sympathy oozing from her words.

"Then what –?"

But just then the door opened.

"Uncle Harry!" Victoire exclaimed, jumping to her feet. "Are you alright?"

"Wonderful," he told her, giving her a careful, one-armed hug. Over her shoulder, he gave Teddy a searching look.

"I should –" Victoire mumbled, stepping back and pointing awkwardly to the door. With one last glance between Harry and Teddy, she slipped out of the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

Teddy slowly sat up, keeping his head ducked because of the bunk bed. Harry leaned against the closed door.

"I wasn't planning my death," said Harry quietly after a moment.

"It doesn't make it much better," Teddy mumbled.

The plastic bag of letters landed in his lap, and Teddy blinked up at him, feeling his chest tighten.

"Might as well finish what you started," Harry told him.

But Teddy didn't want to anymore. He wanted to forget what he'd found, unread what he'd read. He just wanted Harry to make it go away like he used to do with every other nightmare.

"Teddy, what would you do if there was a fifty-fifty chance you wouldn't make it home to say goodbye to the people you cared about?" Harry asked, and there was a defensive note there.

"I don't know!" Teddy cried miserably, shoving the letter aside and burying his face in his arms. "How am I supposed to know?"

He heard Harry close the few feet of space between them, felt a hand cup the back of his head gently.

"I'm not doing this to torture you," Harry promised. "But you started this, so now you have to finish it. And then I'll answer all your questions, okay? It's time you knew anyway. You'll be studying it this year in Defense Against the Dark Arts. You should hear it first-hand from us."

The hand withdrew, there were footsteps, the door opened and then shut again, and Teddy was once more alone with those damned letters. Eventually he sat up, grabbed the plastic bag and dumped it out at his feet. There were five letters left.

He thought about going downstairs and throwing the bag in the fire, about telling Harry he couldn't take any more of it. But that moment in the attic, the moment he'd opened the first letter even though he knew he would regret it, played back to him. Whatever Harry said, this was his punishment for that moment. So he squeezed his eyes shut and grabbed the first letter that met his fingers.

_Winter, 1997_

_Dear Mr. and Mrs. Weasley,_

Teddy swallowed painfully. He hadn't even thought of the two of them.

_I don't even know where to start._

_I never had parents. I mean, I did, but I don't remember very much about them. And mostly I didn't really think much about it because that was just the way it was, the way it had always been, me not having parents. I didn't think much about it until I came to stay with your family, anyway, got to see what it might have been like. You've done… so much for me, and I feel like I've just never gotten a chance to thank you properly. Actually, I've just caused you a lot of trouble._

_I put your kids in mortal peril, I made your family a target – an even bigger target – and now we've run off with no explanation, and I'm sorry for that, I really am. I didn't mean for it to be this way. You've shown me nothing but kindness and for what reason, aside from the fact that you're two of the best people I've ever known, I still haven't figured out. _

_For a kid who wasn't welcome in his own home, just opening up your door to me meant a lot. I know it wasn't always easy just to take care of your own kids. And I know money's just money, but I hope you take what I left you. I would have split it with you a long time ago if I'd thought you'd take it then. It makes me feel just a little bit better that I can do something for you. I'm so sorry I brought this war to your doorstep, and I wish I could've made it up to you. I really do. _

_Mr. Weasley, I spent a lot of time looking for someone who could show me how to be an adult. Sirius… he was a great man, but I've started to realize he didn't always make the best decisions. Not even Remus does, I guess. But you've always been there, and you've always given sound advice, and you've always listened to me, even if you thought I was being paranoid or mad. I just wanted to tell you that if I'd gotten the chance, I'd have tried to be like you. That's all. _

_Mrs. Weasley, I…. I really don't know how to say it, but I hope you know how much it meant to me, the things you did. Even before you knew me at all. I still have every jumper you knitted me. I hope you can understand…._

_Your kids are the luckiest in the world to have you two as parents. They better know that. Thank you for everything. The summers and holidays I spent with your family are some of the best memories I've got. _

_And I wanted you to know that I'm okay with how things ended up. I mean, I don't want to die, but I know why it had to be me. I've known it was coming to this for a long time, and I've made my peace with the idea that I might not make it out alive. Before I was even born, I was on this track and no one could have pulled me off of it. As long as things are better now, as long as I went down fighting, as long as you're all alright, I'm okay with how it had to be. _

_All the best,_

_Harry_

Teddy felt his eyes burn almost at once. This letter struck almost as close to home for him as the ones to his parents. When he'd gotten old enough to appreciate what Harry and Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Charlie, what all the Weasleys, really, had done for him, he'd felt a similar gratitude. They had had no obligation to help him and his grandmother, yet they had provided a family for them anyway, taken time out of their busy lives, often bent over backwards for them.

For much of his adolescence, Teddy had taken comfort from the fact that Harry was like him, that they both understood the unspoken language of orphans of war. But this letter accentuated one of the major differences in their situations: Harry hadn't grown up with the support of a surrogate family. He probably spent a lot of time scrambling to figure out who could fill those roles for him, if they could be filled at all. It was a surprisingly potent disappointment for Teddy to realized that neither his father nor even Sirius Black, Harry's own godfather, had quite been able to manage it and that there was a thick layer of loneliness not even Teddy could understand.

And of course there was Harry's gut-wrenching, but at this point unsurprising, attempts to comfort Molly and Arthur by assuring them he had made _peace _with his lot. But what really hit Teddy between the eyes with this one was that he could imagine writing something like this to Harry and Ginny. He could understand this letter, the emotions it was trying to convey, because if he thought he might die, he wouldn't want to go without leaving them with something, making sure they knew.

He swallowed and sniffed roughly, reaching blindly for the next one.

_New Year's, 1998_

_Dear Percy,_

_Look, just hear me out, okay? _

_Swallow your pride and go home._

Percy had run out, too? But Teddy was beyond being shocked by declarations like this. It was just another dull, disorienting blow.

_I know I'm the last person you want to hear that from, but if you haven't just sucked it up already and made peace, you need to hear it from somebody. It's been more than two years. _

Two years? That was something new. According to Hermione, Ron and Teddy's father had only made it a few weeks. It was almost enough for Teddy to believe these letters were a hoax, suggesting Percy – Mr. Gung-ho-family-man– would bail.

_Your family misses you, your mother cries over you. Not everybody has that, you know, a family to go back to. God forbid it, but you don't know how long _you'll _have it either._

_You made a mistake. You turned your back on your family, picked the wrong side, wanted more than you had, were sick of being the butt of your brothers' jokes, I don't know. I don't pretend to understand all the things that made you leave, but I know you've got to regret it. So duck your head and humble yourself to them. It might not be easy, it might taste bitter as hell, but you're a Gryffindor and a Weasley and that makes you better than running away from your problems. _

_I'm going to tell you two things._

_I read that letter you wrote to Ron in our fifth year; he showed it to Hermione and me, you must have known he would. You knew me for four years. I lived in your house during the summer. You gave me advice and full marks in the second task. But the minute the Minister said so, you believed I was mentally disturbed, dangerous, and a pathological liar. Was it really that easy? Never mind. The first thing I wanted to tell you is that even though that still stings, I get it. I saw the look on your face after the second task. I almost got your little brother drowned, and Merlin knows that wasn't the first time something like that's happened. Look where we are now? _

_It doesn't make supporting the attempted destruction of a fifteen-year-old kid alright, but I'm letting it go because it's not worth taking to my grave, and it's not worth taking to yours either. _

_The second thing I want to tell you is that you're not the only one to bail. Maybe I shouldn't be the one telling you, but a couple months ago, Ron ran out on us. Me and Hermione, that is. I don't know how much you know about the whole thing, but between me and Hermione, we haven't had much choice but to go into hiding, and it's been Hell, and Ron turned his back on us and left. But you know what? He came back. It took him a while to find his way back, and it was the farthest thing from easy, but he made amends. You're not the first person to screw up and you're not the last._

_They're your family. You and I both know them. They'll understand what they can and forgive what they can't because that's what families are supposed to do, I guess. Trust me, the worst regret you can have is letting something go unsaid until it's too late. That's why I'm writing this. _

_Don't wait until it's too late._

_Harry_

And just like that, the tides turned from sickening sorrow to anger yet again. What the hell was wrong with these people? He had long ago abandoned the picture of perfect heroism he had once seen all the adults he looked up to in, but he had never questioned their bravery and conscience. Now all of a sudden it turned out half of them had been cowards and absentees.

He tossed Percy's letter aside.

_January, 1998_

_Dear Bill and Fleur,_

_First of all, I'm really, really sorry about your wedding. Really. Maybe you can have a proper reception when this is all over? You could use the money I left you. Take enough of it for a good party. I reckon they'd've come if I was there or not, but I still feel like it was my fault._

_Right, so in all the chaos, I don't think I ever got to actually congratulate you two. So… congratulations. I hope this is all over and you can have a long, happy marriage. Maybe you'll even have a kid or two to keep Remus and Tonks's company. I know some people said you were rushing into this whole thing when you first got engaged, that you'd only known each other a year, but I reckon with things the way they are right now, that's practically a decade. I don't know a whole very much about relationships, so I suppose I should be the last one giving out marital advice, but you see people's true colors pretty quickly when you fight for your lives together, so I guess I'm just saying I don't think you rushed headlong into anything. _

_Second, thanks for what you did for Ron. He told us you took him in, kept the whole thing to yourselves. It wasn't all his fault really, what he did. And it's really between the three of us. He found a way back, so that's really all that matters. _

_Right, well, I guess that's all I have to say. You've both been right decent to me. Fleur, I'm glad you stuck around. Apologize to your family for me for dragging them into this, too. Maybe you can have that wedding in France you always wanted?_

_Well, anyway, best of luck,_

_Harry_

Teddy shook his head as he laid this letter aside. Three down. He had heard the story of Bill and Fleur's crashed wedding reception only once, listening drowsily from behind the couch late one night. He was sure the adults had forgotten he was there. He didn't know why, but the story left him with a surprising sorrow, perhaps because Fleur had always struck him as the sort to keep her wedding gown and photo album in a chest as a reminder of pure happiness whenever she might need it. As he'd listened to the story for the first time, he'd half-dreamed of her opening the chest and the ruined white wedding memorabilia washing onto the floor on a wave of black, horrific memory that kept on flooding into the room, staining the bright walls and sandy wood of Shell cottage.

This letter was a melancholy reminder, and the passing reference to Victoire and her brother and sister twanged sharply in his gut. He groped for the next one.

_Early January, 1998_

_Dear Fred and George,_

Bloody Hell. He had addressed it to the both of them. Had they been so inseparable that Harry could not imagine one might survive alone?

_Well I tried to think of some witty remark to make this less depressing for you, but honestly humor is pretty low on the ground right now. Maybe you can fix that. I hope the joke shop's still going strong. Wouldn't like to think my investment went to waste. You guys struck gold with your ideas, and I don't figure you need much more financial support, but I left you some of my gold anyway. Maybe you could use it to open up your Hogsmeade branch. Maybe some of the proceeds could go to help resettle the Muggle-borns who were taken to Azkaban, or the kids who were orphaned because of this war. I dunno. _

_I also left you the Marauders' Map, since you were the ones who liberated it from Filch's office. I was hoping you'd make sure it continues to get put to good use. Maybe you could keep it safe until Remus's kid leaves for school? He or she is the rightful heir to it, now. Did we ever tell you the story behind that map? Anyway, I reckon Remus's kid'll need a little corrupting, and I was hoping the two of you could take care of that for me. Maybe slip them a couple extendable ears or some trick sweets once in a while from me? Give them a reason to use that map like you two did. _

_And... keep an eye on Ron, will you? Ginny, too, but Ron especially. I'm just a bit worried about him is all. I know he's your little brother and that means you're supposed to avoid him like the plague most of the time, but... I think he'll need someone to keep him company, keep him busy. Maybe we're a little too attached for our own good._

_And now comes the awkward part. You were the closest things to big brothers I ever had. I mean, your whole family was the closest thing I had to a real family. But I just… I wanted to thank you for looking out for me, treating me like one more sibling. I never minded when you'd heckle me. It was just… it was good of you to keep an eye on me. I mean, it would've been a lot more awkward asking Ron or writing Sirius or your dad about how to go about shaving. It's just you had plenty of brothers already; you didn't have to take me in, but you did, and I appreciated it a lot. _

_Well, I reckon I've asked enough of you. I hope the shop keeps going strong. Maybe one day you'll have a sign like Olivander's proclaiming thousands of years of good service. _

_All the best,_

_Harry_

Even before he was born, Harry was thinking of him. It rose in his chest a feeling that was both comfortingly warm and seeringly hot. But two particular details struck him in the swimming sea of fragmented information.

First, he hadn't known the Marauders Map had come to Harry through the twins. It had always seemed inherent to him that Sirius or Teddy's father, or perhaps Harry's own father had passed it onto him and that Teddy was the third in that familiar link. That it had come from another source, almost as equally ghostly to Teddy seemed to change something fundamental in that piece of parchment.

Second, that Fred and George had been the ones to teach Harry how to shave. Harry was the one who'd taught him the summer before his fourth year. He had not thought of where the personal lessons usually provided as necessary by parental figures came from when one lacked parental figures for the undertaking. He imagined the awkward panic of finding stubble all over his face and not knowing what to do about it or who to ask without dying of embarrassment. It was another reminder of failures of Sirius and his own father.

And Teddy had never exactly realized what all Fred and George had done in the way of 'adopting' Harry. Beyond Ron, Ginny, Molly and Arthur, he hadn't thought there was much more to the process than amicable acceptance.

Taking only mild solace in the fact that there was only one letter left, Teddy slit the last envelope.

_I think it's February by now… sometime in winter, 1998_

_Dear Charlie,_

_I know I never exactly got to know you very well, but I've written to every other member of your family, so I thought I ought to write to you too. I don't exactly know what you know or what you think of me, but I figure you've seen the way Ron's arms are still scarred from the Ministry, and how George lost an ear getting me out of Privet Drive. You're family's done a lot for me, risked a lot, and you don't even know me really, so I can understand if you resented me a little for that. If your family gets hurt any more in this, I just want you to know I'm sorry. I didn't mean for them to be in the middle of all this. _

_I know you tried to get back to England to help out, but honestly it might be better that you couldn't. At least your parents know your safely out of the country. _

_I really haven't got much else to say. I left you a bit of gold. Maybe you can use it to come home more often? Hope everything turns out for you. From what I do know of you, you seem like a good bloke who deserves at least that much._

_All the best,_

_Harry_

And there it was. The last letter. Short and more telling because of it. Charlie had always made such an effort to be a presence in Teddy's life because of Tonks that he sometimes forgot how distant Romania must have seemed during the intense struggle in England. Harry had hardly known him. And he had feared Charlie – Charlie who didn't resent even the mosquitos that pricked him – would blame Harry for the many injuries his family had accumulated during the fight. A fight Charlie was almost as much of a stranger to as Teddy was, this letter reminded him.

He didn't know what to do with it all. With these kaleidoscope pieces that kept shifting and blossoming behind his eyes, making him dizzy and seasick. He stood up, more than ready to run as far from the heap of envelopes as he could get, and staggered out of the room to find Harry.

**A/N: What did you think? I wish I could have made this longer, but that would have meant another month-long wait and you just deserve better. Now don't worry, the letters have not finished playing their part and the final chapter (I think it will be the final chapter, although we'll see how it all falls) will be up hopefully sometime in December or January when I am on my very long Christmas break while all my friends are busy with school and the likes. **

**Please please let me know what you thought of this! I just love hearing from you and every review makes me giddy! **


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Alright guys, here you go. Chapter six, as promised. And it is the last chapter. Thank you guys so much! You are the best audience I've ever had! I hope very much that this last chapter was worth the wait and that you all are happy with it, because you deserve a good ending! Hope you're holidays were merry and you have a spectacular new year, and that I keep hearing from you for a long time to come! **

The house seemed too loud, too hot, too crowded. Teddy leaned over the banister to scan the packed sitting room and kitchen, looking for Harry's dark head among all the red. But he didn't seem to be there. Swallowing an irrational panic, Teddy descended into the mob. Harry wasn't about to run out on him after _this_.

Charlie passed him, heading up the stairs. "Hey, kid, you alright?" he asked, turning around a step above Teddy.

Teddy gave a half-shrug, not daring to stop. He found Ginny helping Fleur set the table.

"He just ducked out to get something," she assured him with one look at his face. "He'll be back in a second."

Almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth, the door opened. Teddy jumped out of the chair he'd just sunk into as if it had burned him.

"Finished?' Harry asked from the doorway.

Teddy nodded, swallowing hard. Harry opened an arm to him, and Teddy let himself be guided out of the house, away from Fleur, Mrs. Weasley, and George's curious stares and into the cool back garden. They crossed the grass in silence and both leaned against the rickety fence in mirroring poses.

"So, what do the critics say?" Harry asked at last.

"It's not funny," Teddy said angrily, turning around to stare up at the first stars dotting the dusky sky.

"Sorry," Harry mumbled. "Been hanging 'round Ron and George too much the last thirty years."

He crossed his arms over the topmost rail and leaned over to examine the wildflowers growing along the road. Teddy pushed off the fence and turned an agitated circle, trying to find some way to relieve the pressure building in his chest.

"I don't know what to do with this!" he exclaimed suddenly, throwing his hands up.

"Neither did we," Harry said quietly. "For a long time, none of us knew exactly what we were supposed to do with everything that had happened once things were ordinary again. Teddy, you just had to read about it. We had to live it. And that's the whole point of everything we do, that you _don't_ have to live it. But there comes a point where you do have to understand it because it shaped your entire world. Horrible things happen. They happen to people you care about, and you can't do anything about it. People get scared, do things they regret, and all you can do is forgive them or resent them, and it better be damn worth it if you pick the latter."

Harry paused and looked over at Teddy.

"I know it's hard," he went on, quiet again. "And unfortunately it's harder for you because you're the first, and none of us really know what to say."

Teddy sank to the grass and pulled one knee up to his chin. "I just… there's so much stuff I didn't know and I don't understand it all…."

Harry folded himself down opposite him. "Alright, let's try to sort it out, then. What's the biggest thing on your mind?"

Teddy chewed his lip. "You don't still think like that, do you?" he asked, a small crack in his voice. "I mean, Ron and Hermione told me – they told me you tried to get yourself killed, to sacrifice yourself for all of them. You're an Auror, you still run head-long into danger every day. You don't still – still –"

"No, of course not," Harry said emphatically. "I told you, I never _wanted _to die, but Teddy, I was seventeen and going up against the most powerful dark wizard in a century with no clue what I was doing. I wasn't trained for what I was doing, people were dying all around me, _I'd _only escaped on luck more than once. And there was a prophecy –"

"Yeah, you mentioned it in Neville's letter," Teddy remembered, coloring a bit at the admission (although Harry had known before) that he'd pried into that particular letter which had nothing to do with him at all and whose recipient happened to be his teacher.

"Yeah, well, that prophecy as good as told me that if I couldn't bring Voldemort down, he would bring me down," Harry went on. "Maybe it seems like he didn't have a chance now, but back then, he had the upper hand. There was a very real possibility we weren't going to make it, and I was just putting things in order _in case._"

"But you did give yourself up," Teddy pressed. "You _did _try to die!"

Harry rubbed his forehead, unconsciously pushing a thumb over his scar. "That last night… Teddy, I wasn't just giving myself up because I thought he'd leave everyone else alone or because I didn't see any other way out. I _had _to do it. It's hard to explain, but when he tried to kill me the first time, things happened that not even Dumbledore fully understood. He wasn't exactly magically stable and what my mother did was ancient and powerful magic that's unpredictable. Essentially, we were connected and he couldn't die as long as I was still alive. I didn't find out until halfway through the battle that we _couldn't _win unless I turned myself in. That's why I did it. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, I promise you that, Ted. Even after expecting not to survive for years, I didn't think I'd have to actually, consciously walk to my death, and it took everything I had to do it. Does that make you feel any better?"

Teddy swallowed. "Maybe a little."

Harry reached over to ruffle his hair. "I'd gladly take a curse for you, kiddo, but only if it's a choice between the two of us and there's no other way, alright?"

Teddy nodded.

"What else, then?"

Teddy pulled up a handful of grass and began shredding it. "My dad… I talked to Hermione about it. She said I can't really understand what he was thinking but not to hold it against him."

"Yeah, that was something I was rather hoping you would never have to find out about," Harry sighed. "Hermione, as usual, is right. Your dad was in a tough place. He thought he was doing the best thing for you when he left, but he did come back."

"Only because you told him off," Teddy muttered. "Even before I was born, you were looking after me better than he was."

"Teddy," Harry said sharply.

"He attacked you just for _suggesting _he was messing up," he shot back heatedly. "How come you never mentioned that side of him in all the stories you used to tell? You made out like he was a mild-mannered professor who always knew how to stand up and do the right thing. You said that's what made him different from other werewolves. But really he wasn't that much different –"

"Teddy!"

"No, this changes everything! Everything anyone's ever told me about him! He didn't _want _me!" Teddy heard the trace of petulance he'd thought he'd outgrown, the way his words rang like those of a child, but he didn't much care at the moment. He could tell Harry was about to lay into him like he'd done when Teddy _was _a petulant child and looked away.

"Did you know my dad was bullying arse?"

Caught off guard, Teddy glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, shaking his head.

"Well he was," Harry told him. "I didn't know a thing about it until I was fifteen, and, er, went some place I shouldn't have. Like godfather like godson, I suppose. Anyway, everyone always told me what a great man he'd been, how much he'd cared about his friends, how brave, how _heroic_, and there he was hexing younger kids just because he could, humiliating people. My mother couldn't stand him or Sirius, who was just the same way.

"So I confronted Sirius and your dad about it, and you know what they told me? I'd caught him in a bad moment. He wasn't always like that. He grew up, changed. They didn't tell me because when they thought of my dad, they didn't think of that at all."

"My dad was already grown up," Teddy muttered.

Harry sighed. "Alright, you're going to be angry about this for a while. I understand. I was, too. But just remember it was a bad moment. I can show you that memory if you want, and a load of other memories to prove to you it was an anomaly. Don't judge him too harshly."

"But what about you?' Teddy asked suddenly. "Maybe Dad ran out on me and Mum for some stupid, deluded reasons he could justify in his head, but what about how he was for you? You always acted like Dad and Sirius were there for you and you were just returning the favor with me. But They weren't, were they? You said Arthur and Molly were the closest thing to real parents you had, that you couldn't look up to Sirius and Dad like you thought you could. Fred and George were the ones who had to teach you how to shave!"

"Whoa, ease up a second," Harry cut in, holding up his hands. "First of all, I still do and always have looked up to your dad and Sirius. Both of them had a hell of a lot going against them, and they still managed to do the right thing _most of the time_. And they _were _there for me more than they had to be. Your dad took a lot of time out of his evenings to help me when he was teaching, and afterwards he made an effort to come 'round when he could, talk to me, make sure I was okay.

"And Sirius took a vested interest in my life – every part of it, which was a big deal because he was really the first person ever to do that outside of Hagrid and my friends at school. When I got thrown into the Triwizard Tournament, even though he was the most hunted man in Britain, he came back to the country, lived in a cave in Hogsmeade surviving on _rats _just so he could be close at hand. Granted, he can't've had much better circumstances elsewhere since he was being hunted worldwide, but at least in Africa there wasn't snow and rain every day and he probably could've chanced walking around as a man once in a while and getting decent food and a place to sleep.

"Maybe it's not the same things I've been able to do for you, but you've got to remember that I also didn't meet them until I was thirteen. They didn't raise me; they didn't even see me that much because I was in school. I knew your dad for four years and Sirius for two, most of which we spent writing letters back and forth, and not very frequently since the Ministry was searching mail or one of us was in hiding. They had a lot of their own problems, they made mistakes, they'd never had kids of their own to even _know _what to do with me, but the thing is, they tried. They wanted to be a part of my life and that's all I needed to know."

He finally fell silent. Teddy let the explanation wash over him, settle around him.

"I s'pose if you're not upset, I shouldn't be," he mumbled. "But it just really sucks when people aren't what you thought they were."

Harry gave a hollow laugh. "I understand that completely. But you've still got to remember they've been that way all along. There are parts of what you thought that are still true."

Teddy shrugged. "Percy bailed on his family for _years_, you didn't even know Charlie…" he peeked cautiously up at Harry with the next part. "Dudley used to beat you up…."

"Didn't realize exactly how much I put in those things," Harry muttered, rubbing tiredly at his forehead again. "Alright, don't be angry with Percy. You weren't there, so you've got no business holding that against him. It was the biggest mistake of his life and even now it's a delicate subject, got it? Thing is, when you grow up in a family as big as the Weasleys, sometimes it's not as wonderful as it might seem. Inevitably, you get left out or picked on or overlooked. There's not a lot of money or time to go around, and if you happen to be one of the older ones, you get stuck having to be a parent to your siblings when you're still a kid.

"At the end of the day, I'm sure everyone in that family is glad they're in it, but can you understand a little why Charlie might've just wanted to get away, or why there might have been a lot of friction between Percy and the rest? Escalated with war and politics, you get estrangements, accidental or not. But they're mended now and there's no point breaking open old wounds."

Teddy nodded. Harry hadn't mentioned Dudley, but he felt it might be pressing a bit too hard to bring that up. Besides, he thought he got a pretty clear picture from the letters, and if it was more than that, he didn't really want to know. At least right now.

"It's a lot to process," Harry said sympathetically. "All of it, I know. It'll take some getting used to."

They sat in silence for a minute. Harry had just pulled something out of his pocket and was fiddling with it when the back door opened. Ron leaned out of it, scanning the dark yard until he spotted them.

"I think you better come in here," he called in a low voice.

"Why?" Harry asked suspiciously.

Ron let the back door bang closed behind him, shuffling his feet. "Er – Charlie may have come across something upstairs when he was getting an extra chair out of Ginny's room…."

Teddy's head shot up, and Harry swore under his breath and sprang up.

"I s'pose he looked, didn't?" Harry demanded, climbing the back steps.

"Well it had his name on it," Ron offered, grimacing. "And er, he sort of did more than just take his own…."

Harry whipped around at the door. "Tell me they _all _didn't open theirs."

"Well they haven't opened 'em yet," Ron mumbled.

"Why didn't you stop it!"

"Have you seen Charlie?" Ron asked, holding his arms out like a gorilla.

"And you're deputy head of the Auror office," Harry muttered, pushing Ron ahead of him through the kitchen door.

Teddy cautiously followed them. The Burrow's kitchen was a dense knot of tension. The letters were all spread across the table. Percy had picked up the envelope marked 'Will' and was gaping at it. George was flipping through the names. Bill, Fleur, Angelina, and Neville (whom Hermione had invited for dinner when she'd gone to get the kids) were watching Ginny and Charlie, who were in the midst of a heated argument Hermione was trying and failing to mediate. Mrs. Weasley stood at the stove with her back resolutely to her children, and as Teddy slipped in the back door, Mr. Weasley came in from the sitting room, jabbing his wand at the doorway behind him, probably to keep those in the sitting room from hearing.

"You'd've done the same thing if you'd seen your name!" Charlie was snapping at Ginny.

"Why did you have to bring them down here for everyone else though?" she demanded furiously. "It was none of your –"

"It has _their _names on it, too!"

"Did you even look to see what it was?"

"Of course I bloody looked! Why d'you think I bothered to bring them down here in the –"

"You are the thickest blockhead I've ever –"

"Well, excuse me for infringing on your secret –"

"Alright, that's enough!" Arthur yelled, shooting purple sparks out of his wand. "Could somebody please explain what exactly this is all about?"

Before any of the others could clamor to explain, Harry cleared his throat. Every eye turned to him.

"Well, see, I wrote quite a few of you some letters a while back…" he began. "When Ron and Hermione and I were hiding out that last year, and there was, you know, a good chance we might not come back, it sort of helped to know I had some control over what my last words would be. There were just things I wanted to say, so I wrote them down and hid the lot with Ron in case I didn't get a chance to say goodbye in person. But I didn't need to say goodbye, as it turned out, so I guess they rotted away in Ron's attic for eighteen years until Teddy came across them and couldn't help himself."

Teddy ducked his head, reddening.

There was silence.

"So…" George said slowly. "These letters are everything you always wanted to say to us but never had the guts to say to our faces?"

"Sort of… not exactly," Harry said uncomfortably.

"And Teddy's read every single one?"

Teddy nodded at his shoes.

"Well then," George said, reaching for his letter. "I reckon we have a right to them, then."

"Just because they have your name on them, doesn't make them your property!" Ginny flared up.

"And what did _yours _say?" Charlie demanded.

"Don't tell me the three of you didn't rip yours open the moment you saw them," George added heatedly.

"That's different –" Ron began.

"Why? Because you're part of that top-secret mission, so you've got a right to know everything and never let _us _in on your lives?" George threw at him with a surprising amount of anger.

"If Harry really wanted you to know, he'd've told you already," Ginny snapped.

"He wrote the bloody things!" George shouted.

"When he was seventeen and in the middle of a war," Hermione interjected.

"And only meant you to read them if he _died_," Ron added.

"He _did_ die!" George cried, the force of it carrying him a step forward. "All three of you did!"

"None of us are the same, George," Hermione whispered.

"But it's different with you lot," George insisted, spinning on her. "We were all together. We saw it happening to each other, understood it. But you lot… every bloody year you'd come back and there'd be something a little more gone and we never knew _why_ because you never told us a damned thing. Those kids that disappeared from Bill and Fleur's wedding? They _never _came back. They sent you lot, and you lot won't ever tell where you buried the bodies!" he was breathing hard now, red-faced, letter crumpled in his fist. "So I'd like to know what at least one of those kids had to say to me."

Without looking at anybody, he pulled out a chair, threw himself into it, and smoothed out the letter. Nobody else moved.

"Er," Harry said awkwardly into the silence. "You might as well go ahead and read them if you want to. I suppose I don't really mind…."

There were some mumbles and the room shuffled forward, sorting through the letters to find their own. Percy efficiently separated the heap into two neat stacks – those present and those not – and distributed the lot.

"You sure it's alright?" Neville asked tentatively as he took his.

Harry gave him an encouraging nod.

Mr. Weasley took the last letter. He crossed to the stove, but when he offered it to his wife, she turned away. "No, I don't want to read it," she said thickly.

A few of her children looked at her with surprise, on the point of unfolding their own letters.

"It's really alright," Harry promised.

She looked at him and her eyes filled up. She shook her head. "No, there's nothing in that letter you can't say to me in person. If there's something you want me to know, tell me yourself, face-to-face. But I'm not going back to that night."

She shook her head again and headed for the door, saying something about helping Audrey with the children. Harry watched her go with a pensive expression. The rest looked at Mr. Weasley uncertainly.

"I'll read it for the both of us," he mumbled, and pulled out the letter himself. The rest followed suit.

Harry turned back to Teddy, pulling something out of out of his pocket again. This time Teddy saw with some trepidation that it was another envelope. When Harry turned it over, he saw it had his own name on it.

"I wrote it the night you were born," Harry murmured. "Never found a chance to put it with the others. So when we left Shell Cottage, I slipped it behind some of the china figuring someone would find it, but I guess no one ever did. I understand if you've had enough for now, but… you know… since you read all the others."

He pressed it into Teddy's hands and turned toward Ginny, who'd come to stand next to him, clutching her own letter.

"Not going to read it?" he heard Harry whisper to her.

"I think I've read enough," Ginny whispered back.

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Only I've got a very strong suspicion you scrawled the words 'I love you' somewhere in this, because if you didn't, you know I'd've broken into the afterlife and hunted your scrawny arse down. And the thing is, I really want the first time you told me you loved me to be Christmas Eve in the window seat, when we were looking at all the stars…. Somehow, a letter from the grave is not nearly as romantic."

Harry laughed quietly and kissed her forehead.

Teddy stared down at the letter in his hands. The one letter that was actually his to open, and it was the last thing he wanted to do. _Later _he told himself. The rest of the room was reaching the end of their letters, and Teddy quickly folded his and stuck it in his pocket.

Percy was the first one to look up, and Teddy was surprised by the anger in his expression. He was looking right at Ron. "You left?" he demanded in a quavering voice.

Ron's eyes widened. Everyone else looked up, too.

"You told him about that?" Ron asked, looking sharply at Harry.

"I –" Harry started.

"All that time I spent trying to make things up to you, and you weren't any better than me!"

"You've got no idea what you're talking about!" Ron said angrily.

"You _left_?" George repeated dangerously.

"Where did you go?" Mr. Weasley asked, frowning.

Fleur had frozen with her mouth half-open.

"Look, it happened a long time ago, and we don't understand all of it," Bill began.

"You knew!" George accused, jumping out of his chair. Angelina tried to put a hand on his arm, but he shook her off. "Why the bloody hell didn't you tell anybody? Didn't you think we might've liked to know he was alive?"

"He asked me not to tell anyone because he was still in hiding, and he knew you lot would act like this."

Charlie was watching the exchange between his brothers as if it were taking place in a foreign language. Ginny had rounded on Ron.

"You _left_?" she repeated, echoing George except that it was almost a shriek.

"Alright, look!" Harry said loudly, swiftly getting between Ron and Ginny. "None of you understand what went on back then."

"So tell us!" George shouted. "We've only been going over every horrible situation we can think of for nearly twenty years, wondering what the hell you could have seen to wake up screaming like you used to, to not be able to tell even _us_ about it!"

"It's not that we didn't want to, it's that we _can't_," Ron retorted heatedly. "We swore we wouldn't."

"To who? Dumbledore? Mad-Eye? They're dead!" Goerge exclaimed. "_You-Know-Who_'s dead! Surely it doesn't matter anymore!"

"Boys!' Mr. Weasley said sternly, forcing each of his children to meet his gaze. "I thought I was done breaking up fights with you lot. You're all grown with children, for Merlin's sake. Now, I recall having this argument plenty of times before. If Harry, Ron, and Hermione don't want to tell us what they were doing instead of attending Hogwarts for their seventh year, it is none of our business. They were all of age, as they are now."

"But –"

"George."

"Ron stayed with me and Fleur for a bit," Bill said into the ensuing quiet. "He was completely torn-up about it, trust me. He showed up in the middle of the night, his hands all bloody and looking more devastated than I'd ever seen him, and he asked me not to let anyone know he was there, even Mum and Dad. What was I supposed to do? Turn him over so they could ground him?" he glanced down at the letter Harry had written to him and his wife. "Look, whatever happened, it was between the three of them and it was ages ago. Harry and Hermione are the ones he left, and they obviously got over it, so the rest of us have got no ground to upset about it now."

Ron gave him a grateful look and his father clapped him on the shoulder.

"Any other big, explosive topics you'd like to cover while we're here?" Harry asked wryly.

"Nah, I think that about covers it," George mumbled.

Smoke was rising from whatever was on the stove. Mr. Weasley quickly turned around to tend to it. He put a kettle on a burner, pulled down a tin of coco powder, and in a minute was handing around mugs of hot chocolate

"Sorry you got caught up in all this," he murmured to Teddy, dropping an extra cinnamon stick into his mug as he handed it over.

Teddy shrugged with a rueful half-smile. "My own fault."

Harry went to help him with the burnt pot, and Arthur clapped him on the shoulder, too. Teddy heard him murmur, "You never had anything to make up for," but the rest of their conversation was too low for him to catch.

Angelina perched on the edge of George's chair, rubbing his arm as they talked quietly. Neville, looking rather more pale than usual, was showing his letter to Hermione. Ron had taken a still-distraught Ginny into the scullery for a chat, and Charlie had sidled over to where Percy was talking to Bill and Fleur, folding and unfolding his letter.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Teddy didn't try to hear any of their conversations. He'd figured out why it was they spoke in murmurs behind closed doors.

XxXxX

It wasn't until late that night when Teddy sat at his desk in his bedroom at his grandmother's house, that he pulled out the letter addressed to him and looked at it again.

Percy had found Harry before he'd left and shook his hand. "I think I needed to hear that, even after all this time," he'd said. Fleur had hugged Harry very tightly, babbling something in French. George had ruffled Harry's already-messy hair and told him, "Anytime, kiddo," which had made him laugh. Charlie had taken Harry by surprise and grabbed him in a rough hug just before he and Ginny left.

So he supposed it was finally his turn. Carefully, he pulled up the flap and extracted his letter.

_April 23, 1998_

_Dear Teddy,_

_Well, I guess I'm your godfather. Barmy idea, that was. I'm already off to a rubbish start. You should hear what I've got planned for next week. Anyway, I hope I get to meet you soon. Sounds like you're already something else. _

_Now I've never been anybody else's godfather before – in fact the last time I was around a kid at all was when I __was __one, so you're going to have to bear with me, okay? I've asked around and it seems there are a few things, as godfather, it will be my responsibility to look after. _

_First of all, I'm going to try very hard not to get arrested, but I really can't make any promises given what's on my agenda. So in case I do get chucked into Azkaban or anything else gets in the way, here are some of the things I'm apparently meant to take care of. _

_The Sorting ceremony at Hogwarts does not involve a troll in any way, whatever Fred and George may tell you. It's actually a blast-ended skrewt. Much worse, trust me. But if you want to make really good life-long friends… then you may need a troll, among other ingredients. _

_There's a secret passage on the fifth floor that hardly anybody knows about. It's a great place for snogging, you know, when you're into that. And on a related note, try to avoid snogging your best mate's sister if at __all__ possible. Particularly in front of him… and half the house, including her ex-boyfriend who may or may not also be your roommate. Anyway…._

_Don't worry too much about what house you'll be in. I reckon you're mum and dad'll be proud no matter what. They're pretty great people. Remember that. _

_Raise a little mayhem for me. Even Hogwarts gets dull without a little mayhem. _

_DO NOT take divination. Even if you've already started spouting off prophecies. Trust me, it's a bad idea. However, if you do, and if Trelawney is still the professor, best thing to do is make up the most horrible, gloomy predictions you can. Don't even bother with trying to do the work properly. She'll love it._

_Make sure someone teaches you how to fly before you get to Hogwarts. Nothing good comes from school brooms. In fact, it's my godfatherly duty to provide you with a proper one, so make sure you take a little money out of my vault and get a top-of-the-line racing broom. Don't let it get near the Whomping Willow._

_Alright, I suppose I should start giving you real advice, huh?_

_Don't hold grudges because they're a waste of energy. Either get on and forgive someone, or let them go. But make sure it really is worth letting them go before you do. Usually it's not worth it, even if you're furious with them. Give people the benefit of the doubt and they usually surprise you. Usually. _

_If there's somebody you like, and you're quite sure you really like them, don't wait around for something to happen. I mean, don't make an arse of yourself either. Definitely don't go snog someone else, especially not in the middle of, say, the common room where everyone will see you. But don't just hang back and hope something will happen. Time's not an unlimited resource. _

_I dunno about you, but I feel like the whole teenage rebellion stage will be lost on your parents. Your mother will probably still have pink hair and your dad helped write the Marauder's Map (ask Fred and George about that if you haven't got it yet). Don't give them too hard a time because they both love you loads. You're lucky that way. _

_Well, that's about as much wisdom as I can dole out right now. Give me a break, I'm only seventeen. I reckon someone else can fill in the rest. _

_If you ever get caught raiding the cookie jar before dinner or using fever fudge to get out of chores or snooping around where you shouldn't be, just whip this scrap of paper out and point here: __I, Harry Potter, Teddy Lupin's godfather, hereby give him permission to be up to no good at least once in a while._

_You're going to be a great kid. _

_All the best,_

_Harry_

**A/N: And we're out! Wow, that got long. I spent all day on it when I only meant to spend half the day on it. But it's finished. Yay! I'm glad to get one story out of the way, but guess what I'm going to do now that this is done? I'm going to go and put up a new story that will demand I update. Check out my profile if you're interested in what that might be. Anyway, once again, thank you guys so much! Love you all! **


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